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  • India has a fair chance

    Hindu, India
    Sunday, Oct 19, 2008

    India has a fair chance

    Manuel Aaron

    CHENNAI: A 62-player Indian chess contingent will arrive in Vietnam on
    Sunday to participate in the World Youth Chess Championships in the
    under-8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 categories, in open and girls only
    draws.

    India has the second largest contingent after host Vietnam with
    96. The next highest is Russia with 48. The total strength of the
    Indian contingent is 110 including the coaches and others.

    The first of the eleven Swiss rounds begins on Sunday and the
    tournament ends on October 30.

    Fair chances


    Indians have a fair shot at medals in the five Open and three girls
    categories.

    In the under-8, Jeet Jain, Abhimanyu Puranik and Bhaskar Gupta are
    seeded one, two and four. Diptayan Ghosh and Sidhant Mohapatra are
    seeded two and five among 91 players in the under-10 category. In the
    under-12, Shiven Khosla and Girish Koushik are seeded second and
    fifth.

    In the under-14, N. Srinath is seeded second and will have to battle
    it out with top seed Polandâs Swiercz and 2007 World Under-12
    champion Daniel Naroditzky of USA.

    India has three International Masters in the under-16 '
    S.P. Sethuraman, B. Adhiban and M. Shyam Sundar. But the top seed in
    this category is Ter Sahakyan, an Armenian with a near grandmaster
    rating of 2495.

    The under-18 has one British and two Vietnamese grandmasters as top
    seeds.

    Clear favourite


    In the under-8 girls', Riya Savant of Goa is the top seed as she is
    the only FIDE-rated player among 55. In the under-10 girls' section,

    Sweety Patel is seeded second and Ivana Furtado fourth. In the
    under-14 girls', the Orissa talent Padmini Rout is top seed with last
    year's bronze medal winner in the under-12 girls, Shalmali Gagare
    seeded sixth.

    At the same championship last year at Antalya, Turkey, India had one
    gold (Ivana Furtado, under-8 girls), two bronze (Prince Bajaj, u-10
    and Shalmali Gagare, girls u-14). A disastrous last round had cost the
    country quite a few medals.
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