Ranindu is champion with 2 rounds to spare. Nethmi nears women’s title

Anandian school boy Ranindu Liyanage will be crowned the Sri Lanka National Champion for 2020 as he has stormed off to an unbeatable lead with one more day to spare in the championship. He started the most awaited battle of the tournament so far against former National Champion FM Minul Doluweera in the morning round where Minul surprisingly played a Petrov’s defense rather than his reliable Caro Kann but couldn’t manage to hold. Ranindu unleashed a dominant kingside attack and brought the game to a close in the 33rd move . In the evening round Ranindu confirmed his title by beating Dhanushka Bandara Yatigammana (Kandy YMCA) in a classical Ruylopez game, using the black pieces.
Other interesting match ups were between young Susal de Silva and former National Champion FM Anuruddha Chinthaka where Anuruddha with the white pieces opted for a Catalan set up and showed all his experience in a long positional game to grab a win. IM Romesh Weerawardane and Theekshana had to settle for a draw in an interesting knight vs bishop end game. The top 5 did not have any changes as each increased their tally by scoring wins. The final day will decide the top 5 places to guarantee a spot on the national team for the year 2020.

The women’s division kept the leaderboard quite interesting during the two rounds today as the battle for the top 5 was intense. Ehsha Pallie (Visakha Vidyalaya) who remained in the title battle fell off from the race as she suffered a loss in the morning round and was held off to a draw by Tharushi Niklesha (Visakha Vidyalaya). Meanwhile WIM Sachini Ranasinghe scored 1.5 points today to jump into the top 5, whilst a loss to Tharushi Sandeepani (photo above) n the 11th round means that defending champion Sayuni Jayaweera will not make the cut for a top 5 spot claiming a seat in the national team for 2020.

Whilst the chase group was getting held up by draws and losses, Nethmi (photo above) scored two wins where she destroyed young Tharuli Vihansa in just 23 moves using a Sicilian defense whilst Nethmi won a piece on the 17th move against W H Mapa to secure another win. As the last day of the championship is about to begin tomorrow, Nethmi needs a point to secure her title whilst it’s still an open battle to finish on the top 5.