India and Mongolia share honours as Sri Lankan girls claim bronze
Sanudula Dahamdi Sri lanka unbeaten 8 out of 9 points
India ‘A’ team won the Online Asian Nations Cup Under-14 Open and Girls Chess Team Championship 2021
convincingly with a score of 15 match points out of possible 18. They beat Kazakhstan 3-1 and Indonesia 3-1 and lost to India ‘B’ team 1½-2½ to earn the honour.
Basak Souhardo playing, Board 4 for India, had an excellent performance for India scoring 8½ points out of nine games and International Master Bharath Subramanian was equally outstanding on Board 1 to score 8 points out of eight games. India led the event from the beginning and finally earned the gold medal and the trophy in addition to other awards.
Mongolian Girls Team I was outstanding from the beginning and finished in the top spot scoring 17 match points out of possible 18 games. They only conceded a draw to Sri Lanka Girls ‘A’ team and easily defeated others in all remaining eight matches. They beat Mongolia Team II 2½-1½, Iran ‘B’ 4-0 and Philippines 3½-½ in the last three rounds. They received the gold medal, trophy and other awards.
The silver medal of both events were annexed by the Iran teams. Iran Team ‘A’ played positively from the beginning and ended up with 14 match points out of 18 possible to win the silver medal. They beat Palestine 4-0, Malaysia Avengers 3-1 and Mongolia Team I 3-1 in last three rounds. They even earned a draw with the winners, India in the 5-hour round. Movahead Jena scored the highest, 7½ points for Iran.
Iran Girls Team scored 15 match points to earn the silver medal in Girls category. They beat Sri Lanka ‘A’ 2½-1½ , India ‘B’ 3-1 and Bangladesh 3½-½ in the last three rounds. Though the third place of both events was won by India ‘B’ and Mongolia Girls Team II respectively, they were not entitling for the awards according to the regulations. India ‘B’ scored 13 match points while Mongolia Girls Team II scored 12 match points.
Malaysia Avengers scored 12 match points to win the bronze medal. They beat Oman ‘A’ 4-0, Palestine 3½, Bangladesh 3-1, Indonesia 3-1, Sri Lanka ‘A’ 3-1, drew with Philippines 2-2, Kazakhstan 2-2 and lost to India ‘A’ and Iran ‘A’ 3-1. Sri Lanka Girls ‘A’ team performed excellently on the first two days and beat five countries in addition to a draw against winners Mongolia. Unfortunately they lost two consecutive matches to Iran Girls ’A’ and Mongolia Girls ‘A’ in seventh and eighth rounds. They recovered well in the last round by winning against Kazakhstan in the last round 3-1 to claim the bronze medal. The captain of the team Sanudula Dahamdi played a responsible role for Sri Lanka Girls by scoring unbeaten 8 points out of nine games with victories against the top two teams, Mongolia Team I and Iran Team ‘B’. This is the highest achievement of a team of Sri Lanka received so far.
On behalf of the Asian Chess Federation, the Asian Nations Cup for Under-14 Open and Girls Championship was organised by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka on the Chess.com platform. As usual the event was held in two categories, Open, where boys and girls can participate and a separate event for Girls only. ‘A’ teams comprised of four players and a reserve and a country was allowed to field two teams in each section.
More than 50 teams from 20 Asian countries participated in the event. Bahrain, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Maldives, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Thailand, UAE and Sri Lanka contested for the crown.
The events was held on the Swiss System for teams in nine rounds and 15 minutes were given for a player per game with 10-second increments for each move. All precautions for preventing cheating were thoroughly activated. Players were allowed to use laptop or desktop computers only and they had to play alone in a room facing a wall. A camera or webcam was compulsory and they were informed to open their cameras and microphones in a zoom meeting in all times when they play. All players were required to share their screens in zoom.
The arbiters were carefully observing the players while playing through this zoom meeting. All games were sent to experts for checking. Chess Federation of Sri Lanka has offered medals and trophies for the winners while a DGT Chess clock is awarded for the members of the winning teams.
Live streaming of the total event was arranged through the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka Youtube channel with commentaries given by Grand Master Dymitro Komrov of Ukarine, Grand Master Praveen Thipsay of India and Sri Lankan National Chess champions, Dulan Edirisnghe, Minul Doluweera, Harshana Thilakarathne and Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage.