Tamil Nadu State Chess Association

GM Adhiban wins Biel Open, Switzerland
Chennai based Grandmaster Adhiban Baskaran added one more title to his illustrious career winning the Biel Open in the Biel International chess festival that concluded at Biel, Switzerland on 25th July, 2014. Adhiban defeated Turkish Grandmaster Dragan Solak in the final round logging a high score of 8.5 points, one point clear of the rest of the field. In fine form, Adhiban remained undefeated scoring 6 wins and 5 draws. Adhiban who trains with FIDE Master K Visweswaran, proceeds next to the Chess Olympiad beginning in a week's time in Tromso, Norway. Sharing the second spot at 7.5 points were seven GMs led by Victor Mikhalevski. Fellow Indian GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly with 7.0 points tied for the ninth place.

Sai Vishwesh of Chennai & Harshini of Tiruvarur won the State Sub-junior Championship
The 40th TN State Sub Junior Chess Championship for boys and 28th TN State Under 15 Girls’ Chess Championship were organized by Coimbatore District Chess Association at Maharaja Institutions from 2nd to 6th July 2014. The boys’ category attracted 163 players and the girls’ section had 71 participants. The event was a nine round Swiss format, with a time control of 90 minutes with an increment of 30 seconds per move. Pranav Vijay of Chennai, who has a rating of 2203 was top seeded among the boys and K Priyanka of Coimbatore (1732) among girls. Sai Viswesh and Aniruddh Aiyengar, both from Chennai led with a centum score of 5 points in as many rounds. Sai VIswesh defeated the co leader in the sixth round, to emerge clear leader at the end of the sixth round. Pranav Vijay, who was trailing by half a point, defeated Sai in the eighth and penultimate round to surge ahead with 7.5 points. Anyhow, Pranav had to be content with a draw in the final round against Aniruddh and Sai prevailed over B Vignesh also of Chennai. Both Pranav and Sai Viswesh tied for the first place with 8 points each, but better tiebreak score enabled Sai to lift the title. On the distaff side, Priyanka of the host association, the top seed had a perfect score of seven points in seven rounds and was sailing smoothly. But, A Harshini of Thiruvarur brought her down in the eighth round, to be on par her with her. In the final round, while Priyanka conceded a draw to CMN Sunyuktha of Kanchi, Harshini defeated her team mate TRS Dakshinya to wrest the title. Priyanka finished runner up.

5th TKSS State-level Children Chess Tournament
Taanya Kaavya School of Sports conducted 5th TKSS State-level Children Chess Tournament on 19th & 20th July, 2014 for categories Under 9, 12, 15 and 25 both Boys and Girls at C.D. Nayagam Hr. Sec. School, T.Nagar, Chennai. The tournament was attracted with 695 participants from all over the state. The prize winners were awarded with the Glittering Cups and Certificates. Chief Guest Mr. C.S. Nayagam, Correspondent of the School and Mr. A.N.S. Prasad, Organizing Secretary gave away the prizes to the winners. The following players got the first place in their respective categories: Categories Girls Boys Under 9 Mohana R Abinandhan R Under 12 Neha Srinibash Yutesh P Under 15 Kharunya C S Hemanth Raam Under 25 Sandya M Aaditya Jagadeesh

Saranya (TN) & Narayanan (KER) Win National Junior
This year edition of the National Junior Chess Championship was a little special since four International Masters took part in this event for the first time. But competition was so fierce that none of them finished in the top two. This event was organised by the Pune Chess Circle from July 10-18, 2014 in a successful manner. All the players were defeated. It was a 11-round Swiss, so there are no knock-outs in the real sense. It was indeed held in a Boxing Stadium at Balewadi in Pune. The top three seeds suffered final round defeats and the fourth seed, S.L. Narayanan from Thiruvavanthapuram won his maiden National title. Harsha Bharathakoti defeated Fenil Shah in the final round to take the second place while Akash took third place. The top finishers will represent India in the 2015 World Junior and World Junior Girls Championships. Title excitement was present when the last round commenced with Aravindh and Narayanan starting on the same eight points. Aravindh lost and Narayanan won and the title was decided right there. Narayanan gains close to five Elo points from this event. Similarly, in the girls’ event, J Saranya and Michelle Catherina had the same eight points. Saranya won while Michelle only drew and the title was decided clearly. J Saranya of Chennai who had won plenty of National age group events added a new bigger title to her existing list of achievements. She gains over 28 Elo from this contest. With G.K. Monnisha third, the players from Tamil Nadu swept the podium. Saranya had been with the famous Velammal School before joining college. She is a product of the Bloom Chess Academy in Chennai.

17th Hercules Turbo Drive State Level Open Chess Tournament For Boys & Girls
The 17th Hercules Turbo Drive tournament was organized by the Tiruvallur District chess Association at St Joseph's Matriculation Hr Sec School, Poonamallee, on 12.07.2014 & 13.07.2014. The tournament attracted a total participants of approximately 739. Eight rounds were conducted for boys, seven rounds for girls and the pairings were done using Swiss Manager. The prize distribution function was held on 13th of July at 05.00 PM with the Chief Guest Thiru. K. Veeraraghava Rao I.A.S, District Collector, Tiruvallur, the Guest of Honor was Rtn.S.Gopalakrishnan, President, Rotary Club of Tiruvallur, and Presidential address by Ms.Sahayarani, DMI, Admin, St Joseph MHSS. Click the headline for results....