India’s chess legend Viswanathan Anand feels the world junior chess championship (under-20), to be held in Pune from October 5 to 20, will excite the chess community in India and Pune in particular.
The tournament will be played in the Swiss League format over 13 rounds. The winner in the open and girl’s categories will receive be Rs. 6 lakh ($9800) each and will be awarded the GM and WGM titles. They will also automatically be eligible for the World Cup which is part of the World Championship cycle.
Each country is allowed one entry in the open and girl’s category. Vidit Gujrathi (open) and Padmini Rout (girls) will be the official entries from India.
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“There is another category called the donor entries in which boys with a 2000 plus Elo rating and girls with a 1800 plus Elo rating will be allowed take part in the competition with the entries being forward by the national federation,’’ said Pune-based Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte.
It was Anand’s win in the WJCC 1987 at Manila that resulted in massive interest for the sport in India. “I have won the tournament and I am here to promote and support the WJCC at Pune. The city has a wonderful combination of factors for hosting the WJCC. There’s lot of chess activity there, they have the ‘Chess In Schools’ programme and they have started the Maharashtra Chess League (MCL) which is almost the Indian Chess League. There will be incredible competition in the WJCC,’’ said Anand.
Anand said the tournament was the second most important event after the FIDE World Championship. Anand, the brand ambassador of the WJCC, said the relevance gains importance given the fact that Russians Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov have been the winners.
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Apart from Anand other Indians who have won the WJCC are P. Harikrishna, Abhijeet Gupta, K. Humpy, D. Harika and Soumya Swaminathan.