By Ishani Upatharitha
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Susal De Silva[/caption]
Young Susal De Silva of Nalanda College, Colombo is now leading the points hunt in the Asian Continental Hybrid Chess Championship where he drew with one of the strongest Grandmasters in the competition, Kazakhstan player Urazaev Aristanbek in the seventh round on Thursday (27).
The Grandmaster was around 350 ranking points ahead of De Silva and he played a fighting game to share the point among them. Now, Susal De Silva is having four points out of possible seven games.
Former national chess champion Minul Doluweera meanwhile scored a point against Bacojo Mark Jay of the Philippines to make his score 3½ points out of seven.
Sri Lanka’s Denuwan Theekshana lost to a FIDE Master from Singapore, Siddarth Jagadeesh (2,331) while the current Sri Lanka chess champion Ranindu Dilshan struggled again, this time against a strong International Master (IM) from Mongolia, Agibilek Uurtsaikh (2,413). Theekshana has three points while Ranindu has just 2½ points now.
Australian Grand Master Kuybukarov Temur made a great show by scoring full points with Chinese GM, Xu Yinglun and came to lead with six points.
Three Grand Masters from Uzbekistan --Nodirbek Yukubboev, Vokihidov Shamsiddin, and Sindarov Javokin-- with Singaporean IM Tin Jingyao are closely following the leader with 5and 1/2 points, just half a point behind.
The event is in progress from 20 May to 30 May via Tornela Platform with one game each a day, starting at 11.30 a.m. and going on till 5 p.m.
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Minul Doluweera[/caption]
The competition is categorised as ‘hybrid’, which means the event is conducted from different venues in different countries via online.
Organised by the Asian Chess Federation (ACF), the tournament has a total of nine rounds according to “the Swiss System” and is supervised by the ACF headquarters located in Al Ain, UAE.
A total of $ 16,000 (Rs. 3.17 million) will be awarded to the winners as cash prizes by the ACF. Out of which, $ 5,000 (Rs. 9,92,000) will be for the winner.
Also, the top seven players of the event will qualify to play the FIDE World Chess Cup, to be held in Russia in July this year.
The eighth round of the tournament will be held today (28).
The results of the Sri Lankan participants in round-7:
* Minul Doluweera (2,127) beat Bacojo Mark Jay (Philippines – 1,926)
* Susal De Silva (2,085) drew with Urazaev Aristanbek (Kazakhstan – 2,429)
* Siddarth Jagadeesh (Singapore – 2,331) beat Denuwan Theekshana (2,045)
* Agibilek Uurtsaikh (Mongolia – 2,413) beat Ranidu D. Liyanage (2,203)
Ranking of Sri Lanka players after Round-7:
* 24th place – Susal De Silva
* 46th place – Minul Doluweera
* 60th place – Denuwan Theekshana
* 63rd place – Ranidu D. Liyanage