The National Chess Champion is superior
The National Chess Champion, Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage (photo above) of Ananda College showed excellent performance in the Selection Trials for the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2021 held on 24th and 25th at the Chess.com platform. Ranindu scored a total of 7 ½ out of 9 games to win the event unbeaten. He drew with the next 3 players Minul Doluweera, Susal De Silva and Isuru Alahakoon and beat all othe participants to win supremacy.
Minul Doluweera (above left) and young LMST De Silva (above right) were also exceptional to score 6 ½ points out of 9 games. Minul placed 2nd according to the better tie breaker and Susal had to satisfy himself with the 3rd place. Minul lost his game to AACB Amarasinghe, got three draws with Ranindu, Susal and S sivathanujan. Susal was also unbeaten with five draws with Ranindu, Minul, Isuru, AACB Amarasinghe and Samaranayake.
Dinushki Premanath and Sanudula Dahamdi had a fighting performance of 6 points out of 9 games Dinushki having a bad first round won the Women’s Championship on the better tie breaker while Dahamdi had to satisfy with the 2nd place. Dinushki lost to WMMN Wijesinghe and Tharushi Sandeepani on 1st day but servived well w ith the wins against Ashvini Pavalachandran, Oneli Wilvalarachchi, Sachini Ranadsinghe and Esha Pallie with two draws with Tharushi Niklesha and Sanudula Dahamdi. Sanudula who was on top on the 2nd day scored four wins against Ashvini Pavalachandran, Oneli Wilvalarachchi, WMMN Wijesinghe and Nethmi Fernando and Esha Pallie with four draws against Dinushki Premanath, Tharushi Niklesha, Sachini Ranasinghe and Sandeepani Tharushi. She lost only one game to Ashvini Pavalachandran. After having some poor performance in first five rounds, WIM Sachini Ranasinghe (photo below) made a strong comeback scoring 3 ½ points out of last four games to place 3rd.
The National Selection Committee of Chess in Sri Lanka has decided to play a Selection trial between the top 7 players of the Sri Lanka National Chess Championships, The Top 3 players of the Sri Lanka Rapid National Chess Championships and the top 2 FIDE Rated players of Sri Lanka both in Open and Women sections. The event for selecting the Sri Lanka National Chess Team for FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2021 is conducted by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka on the Rapid time control of 15 Minutes + 10 seconds per each move played is progressing on the Chess.com platform. The event was scheduled to be played on 23rd, 24th and 25th of July 2021 in two separate 9 rounds, round robin events for Open and Girls.
The teams for the Chess Olympiad will be announced in few days.
The details can be seen in the following links:
http://chess-results.com/tnr570880.aspx?lan=1&art=1
http://chess-results.com/tnr570879.aspx?lan=1&art=1&fed=SRI