Indians likely to dominate Asian Youth Chess

Indians likely to dominate Asian Youth Chess
RIDDHI TRIVEDI

AHMEDABAD, DEC 15: The Asian Youth Chess Championship starts here on Thursday. So far teams from seven countries, including hosts India, have reported. Pakistan, Vietnam and Kazakhstan are expected before the draw on Thursday. In fact, Kazakhstan is expected to send the second largest contingent with 18 players.

Players from Malaysia, Iran, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Singapore and Bangladesh have already checked in.

The donor entry system is also one of the reason for the large turnout. The system was introduced by PT Ummer Koya, the secretary of FIDE and president of the National apex body.

``The `one player per country' rule had spelt death of many of tournaments. As countries in fray were few, so were entries, making it impossible to hold a proper tournament. Due to this rule, the idea of holding such a tournament was stalled six years back,'' said Koya. The rule was abolished in '98 and the first edition of the event was held in France the same year.

Since then players who finished in the top three inthe last edition of the tournament and those with exceptional performances in major tournaments besides the donor entrants could participate.

Commenting on the ``pay and play'' donor entrants Koya said: ``Donor entries are beneficial to all. The tournament is benefitted since there are more participants, players get more exposure while FIDE gets vital funds.''

Koya expressed confidence that India will get the lion's share of the titles at stake, if not a clean sweep. He singled P Harikrishna, Koneru Humpy, Tania Sachdeva and Gujarat's Valay Parikh as the ones to watch out.

Tania, one of the strongest contenders for the girls' under-14 title, was non-committal. ``I don't know. It all depends on how I perform on the board. Nothing can be said before hand,'' said a smiling Tania.

Another player who will attract attention is Alavi Seyeed Javed (Iran) the under-10 world champion. Using his coach Shafiei as interpreter, Alavi exlained that he has been practising hard but expects tough competition,especially from the Indians.

The seedings will be allotted after all entries have been reported and the final draw will be on Thursday morning.