Match between UPState U-9 and Keny's U-7 National champion

A series of games were played by Ayush Pandey ( UP state U-9 Champ) and Sharanya Iyengar  U-7 girls national champion of Kenya last week. On Sunday Aug 8 Ayush played a mature game. First he shattered Sharnya's q-side pawns then captured one of them. He maintained this advantage inspite of some good dynamic defence by Sharanya and then converted it in a win . On Tuseday too he got advantage in both games ( was piece up in first game) but Sharanya fought well and counter attacked resolutely to win both of them. On Thurseday again Ayush handled opening much better than Sharanaya, who had several weaknesses in pawn structure etc. This time Ayush maintained advantages to win both matches. In another game Ayush lost his queen due to mouse slip. Final score 3-2 in favour of Ayush.
   One can easily draw some conclusions
1-Ayush had better opening preparation and positional understanding. What he lacked was killer stint and played some slopy chess to allowed opponent to get away from good positons in game 2 and 3. He needs to be more tough mentally to perform well at nationals.
2-Sharanya played opening badly and got in trouble in most of games. She must understand that isolated pawns are are too weak to defend in long run. And it is very difficult to create enough counter play tactically, against tough opponent , to neutralize positional weaknesses. But her temperament and fighting spirit were better than Ayush.

Can't I even sleep ?

There is no chess law to prevent me from sleeping !! 
( An exhausted player sleeping during a game at World School Chess )

World Schools Championship

Normally Indian players perform very well in age-group tournaments. But in Turkey we finished with just one bronze in under-7 boys category. Incidently Nimdia Ridit ( India) was youngest participant. He fell asleep after last round game was completed. Then he could not climb himself on victory stand as it was too high for him !!

All the winners got Note-Book computers. Under-7 girls champion found it too heavy to carry so rested a couple of times during long journey from victory stand to waiting parents !! Many players who were out of prize list got chess books. They all enjoyed this well organised tournament.

   

 Players from Russia, Iran and host Turkey dominated championship winning many medals.

Inter School Chess Championship - Lucknow

Modern Indian School Rajaji Puram organised this year's inter school with support of District Chess Sports Association Lucknow. In all 93 players participated in all 4 categories. Number is nothing considering population of city but it better to have something than total inactivity.
Ex-Miniseter Sri Rajesh Yadav and state chess secretary Sri Raizada distributed prizes to following players-
Primary School Section

1-SwastikDehran
2-Vatsal Vora
3-Ayush Pandey
Junior Section
1-Akash Srivastava
2-Vasu Bajpai
3-Bunty
High-School Section
1-Vibhu Bajpai
2-Mithesh Kaladi
3-Shivendra Singh
Intermidiate Section
1-Abhijeet Srivastava
2-Gangesh Tiwari
3-Shivam Shukla
Though many girls took part in this tournament but none could finish in top 3 in their category. It is shocking that organisers did not give any special prizes to girls. How we are going to make chess popular among girls?
    Some of my present and old students got prizes. Swastik won primary group with perfect 5/5 .Among the girls Rishika Bhattacharya with 3.5/5 in junior section and Adarshika Srivastava 3/5 in primary section did reasonably well. Mithesh Kaladi who was expected to win highschool could manage only II place.Ayush Pandey who was expeced to win primary group got IIIrd place with 4/4 points as he could join tournament late and missed first round.

Junior Chess Tournament Aliganj Lucknow

After a long lull July saw two inter-school chess tournaments.Black&White Chess Club became active after couple of years and organised a tournament at Modern World Scool Aliganj which was sponsored by Avadh Industrial Training Centre. This club is run by Junaid Ahemad ( ex-state champion). It used to publish a very good chess magazine Black&White also.
They gave Rs15000/ to winners in 2 catagories U-19 and U-13 as under :
 Under-19 :1-Shivam Shukla 2-Vibhu Bajpai 5 points
3-Shikhar Verma 4-Syed Sarfaraz Akhtar 5-Rajat Tiwari 6-Saad Baksh Siddiqui
7-Sachin Tandon 8-Harshit Agrawal 4-points
 Under - 13 : 1-Vasu Bajpai 5-ponts
2-Ayush Pandey 3-Akash Srivastav  4-points
One can hope that club remains active and contributes to development of chess in city.