Winning streak: Surya Shekhar Ganguly holds the incredible record of six straight titles from 2003. File
| Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam
Jalgram, they are calling this city now.
The tongue-in-cheek reference is to the waterlogged roads in certain areas thanks to the heavy rain over the past few days. Social media is awash with images of cars and people moving along roads that look more like a river.
This northern Indian city, a major hub for IT and finance, is set to host a major National sporting event. The ominous weather is unlikely to cause much trouble.
Rain or shine, chess should be fine.
The 61st edition of the National championship, which opens on Saturday (August 17, 2024) at the RPS International School, has a large field, of more than 340 players. Among them are several former champions.
The formidable list of champions is headed by Surya Shekhar Ganguly. The Kolkatan holds a record that will take some beating: he won the titles for six years in a row, from 2003 till 2008. He is the top seed, with an Elo rating of 2583. Abhijeet Gupta is seeded second, also rated 2583.
“Ganguly becomes the first seed because the alphabetical order is taken into account when players with identical rating also have the same title (in this case, both are Grandmasters),” explained chief arbiter R. Anantharam.
Abhijeet, too, is a champion from the past. He had won the crown in 2011.
He was placed ninth in the last edition at Pune. The winner was S.P. Sethuraman, who is seeded third here, followed by Diptayan Ghosh and Karthik Venkaraman, the champion in the 59th edition. Including them, 19 GMs are in the fray.
There are 12 International Masters, too. So the untitled players would have chances to try for GM or IM norm.
And there is a total prize fund or Rs. 30 lakh. The champion will get richer by ₹6 lakh.