National U-11 Championship begins

Chennai, Nov 4 (UNI) World Under Champion 2005 Sahaj Grover (Delhi) and World Under-10 Champion 2006 Girish A Koushik (Karnataka) registered comfortable wins over Tamil Nadu's R Hari Vallabha and M Mukesh respectively in the inaugural round of the 20th National Under-11 Chess Championship.

However, interestingly, in the Girls section the top 9 boards resulted favourably for the players having white pieces resulting in the seedings going astray.

Of 12 FIDE rated players, Sonakshi Rathore , Nishtas Gupta (both Raj) , K Sai Nirupama (AP) and S Padmaja (Pondy) went down at the start of the championship.

The event got off to a rousing start with 212 boys and 101 girls from 24 states matching wits in the splendour of the air-conditioned hall at Sri Ramachandra Medical College in Chennai this evening.

The first round saw many decisive games with 88 games in the boys' section and 40 in the girls' category ending decisively.

Well-known names figuring in the winners list include Sahaj Grover, Girish Koushik and Tamil Nadu's M Mahalakshmi who was the bronze medal winner in this year's World U-8 Girls Championship at Batumi.

Incidentally, all the three were felicitated in the inaugural ceremony, at which the Chancellor of the Sri Ramachandra Medical College, Mr V R Venkataachalam made the first move.

Tamil Nadu State Association President P R Venketrama Raja presided and the All India Chess Federation Secretary D V Sundar spoke of the great success recorded by Indian chess players.

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