Strong field of 157 players to compete in Asian Junior Chess Championship
A strong field of 157 players from 10 countries, including six International Masters and 24 FIDE Masters and Women FIDE Masters, will compete in the Asian Junior Chess Championships here from August 16 to 26. The tournament, featuring Asia’s top U20 talent, will comprise nine rounds of Classical Swiss, along with seven rounds each of Rapid and Blitz. It is being held under the aegis of the All India Chess Federation, Asian Chess Federation and FIDE, and hosted by the Maharashtra Chess Association.
The event has previously crowned several prominent players, including Viswanathan Anand, Abhijit Kunte and Tejas Bakre in the open section, and Tania Sachdev, Koneru Humpy and Ivana Furtado in the women’s section.
The winners will earn a Grandmaster norm if they are already IMs, while non-IMs will be eligible for an IM norm.
The Classical event will feature 157 players, while 153 will compete in Rapid and 151 in Blitz. The Open section has an average Elo rating of 2054, compared to 1885 in the junior women’s section.
Indian IM Mayank Chakraborty (2500) heads the open field, followed by Russia’s IM Artem Pingin (2477) and India’s IM Apporv Kamble (2441).
In the junior women’s section, India’s WFM Pratitee Bordoloi (2252) leads the field, ahead of Kazakhstan’s WFA Mariya Kholyavko (2217) and Turkmenistan’s WFM Lala Shohradova (2159). Other Indian players to watch include Vignesh Advaith Vemula (2405), Aaditya Dhingra (2403) and Akshay Borgaonkar (2396), while WFM Swara Lakshmi Nair (2155), Mrittika Mallick (2153) and Saranya Devi Narahari are among contenders in women’s section.
