CM Ranindu Liyanage of Ananda College (left photo) and Nethmi Fernando of Girls High School – Kandy (right) top the tables at the end of the 1st half of the National Chess Championships held at the Sri Lanka Chess Federation Headquarters in Colombo. The tournaments are held according to a round-robin system with 14 players battling out at each Men’s and Women’s category to be crowned as National Chess Champion. Amidst the prevailing situation, the Chess Federation has successfully been able to conduct the topmost tournament in the Sri Lankan Chess Calendar, abiding all health and safety regulations. The Chess Federation of Sri Lanka will offer Rs. 320,000/= cash awards with other attractive prizes for the event and the National Champion will receive Rs. 100,000/=
The Men’s section ended the week with the three top-seeded players finishing on the top of the tables but as history suggests the second half of the tournament always brings a few surprises.
The tournament started off on Friday with the top two seeded players Susal de Silva (photo above) of Nalanda College and Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage facing off against the two veteran Sri Lankan players IM Romesh Weerawardane of Fischer CC and FM Anuruddha Chinthaka of Kandy YMCA where the two youngsters came on top scoring wins to kick start their battle for the title. Ranindu then stormed off to the lead after the 5th round victory over Maheesha Dabarera of Maliyadeva College whilst Susal and FM Minul Doluweera of Royal College (photo below) had to suffer defeats on the way. At the end of the first week, Ranindu leads the pack with 6 points with Minul (5 points) and Susal (4.5 points) on his tail.
There were a few interesting mid-table performances as well, notably from the new attacking player from Jaffna S Sivathanujan of Grand Prix Chess Club who went on to upset a few experienced players by scoring strong wins. He is tied at 6th place with Maheesha Dabarera, Theekshana Denuwan of Ananda College and Rasika Samaranayaka of University of Peradeniya whilst the veterans Anuruddha and Romesh sit 4th and 5th respectively.
In the women’s section Nethmi Fernando of Girls High School – Kandy stormed off to a massive lead by the end of the week where she has already played against the next two players chasing her for the title as well as the reigning National Champion.
It was simply a dominant performance where only Ehsha Pallie (photo above) of Visakha Vidyalaya could hold her to a draw in the opening week. Ashvini Pavalachandran of Wycherley International (photo below) who is leading the chase sits 1.5 points behind Nethmi whilst two Visakians Ehsha Pallie and WFM Nevanjee Hewawasam are 2 points behind.
Defending Champion Sayuni Gihansa Jayaweera of Dharmasoka College has had a slow start in the tournament and sits in the bottom half of the table whilst former National Women’s Champion, WIM Sachini Ranasinghe of NF3 CC also had a slow start in the tournament but later caught up the pace and is poised at equal 5th place and may yet pose a threat to the title battle if she has a strong second half. The rest of the pack placed equal 5th includes Hashara Abeysinghe of NSBM, Tharushi Sandeepani of Devi Balika Vidyalaya and Tharushi Niklesha of Visakha Vidyalaya.
The next set of games will start off on the 19th and continue on 20th & 21st September 2020 followed by the Awards Ceremony. The Federation has also arranged facilities for all games to be shown live in www.livechesscloud.com and the results on www.chess-results.com (Sri Lankan Page). The live Games links:
Sri Lanka Nationals (Sri Lanka National Chess Championship – 2020)
Link https://view.livechesscloud.com#a7528ada-5d01-4b98-9a5d-8e2d35343957
Women’s National (Sri Lanka Women’s National Chess Championship – 2020)
Link https://view.livechesscloud.com#e04d94eb-2461-43ef-a874-00fa9a5ef721
-Written by Minura Munasinghe