\u201cIt is a great moment for Indian chess,\u201d said a beaming Abhijit Kunte as the inaugural Johnson Tiles Maharashtra Chess League 2013 took off at the PY Hindu Gymkhana. The event, first of its kind in India is organized by Maharashtra Chess Association (MCA) and Pune District Chess Association with Amanora as the associate sponsor. The MCL was officially declared open by the Chief guest Chandrakant Dalvi, Commissioner, Land Records, Government of Maharashtra. Also present on the occasion were Ravindra Dongre, FIDE President Zone 3.1 , Vijay Bhave, President PYC Hindu Gymkhana.<\/p>\n
There was drama virtually till the last move with plenty of upsets witnessed in the very first round. The very high profile team of Thane Combatants were edged out by Pune Attackers with a 2.5-3.5 margin. Each team is fielding six players with it being mandatory to field two woman players and three Maharashtra players in each team.<\/p>\n
Jalgaon Battlers were the most impressive team on display as they routed Mumbai movers with a 5-1 margin, the highest in this round. The Jalgaon Battlers now lead the six player league with five points while following one point behind in second place are Nagpur Royals who scored an impressive 4-2 victory against Ahmednagar Checkers.<\/p>\n
The Master movers for the Jalgaon Battlers were IM Narayanan Srinath and S Narayanan as they shocked two Grandmasters Arun Prasad and R R Laxman respectively while Eesha Karavade scored the third victory for the team against Shashikant Kutwal. The other three encounters ended in draws with IM Anup Deshmukh holding GM Vidit Santosh Gujrati on the top board.<\/p>\n
The highest ranked player in fray GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly had an easy time against Padmini Rout but Pune Attackers played inspiringly with Akshayraj Kore defeating his young city mate Abhimanyu Puranik and Lalith Babu defeating Prathamesh Mokal. Himanshu Sharma playing on the top board for Pune attackers defeated National Women Champion Mary Ann Gomes. IM Vijayalakshmi S was held to a draw by Amardeep Bartakke.<\/p>\n
For the Nagpur Royals, Tejas Bakre once again demonstrated why Pune is his favourite venue as he defeated GM G N Gopal to set the wining tune for his team. However what caught the spectators attention was an interesting tussle between two former National women Champions, Soumya Swaminathan and Tania Sachdev, resulting in a victory for the former.<\/p>\n
The format ensures that there is plenty of thrill and excitement as the Board orders is released freshly, just an hour before the games and there is suspense as to on which boards the GMs and other players would be playing.<\/p>\n
Results: <\/p>\n
Thane Combatants(2.5) lost to Pune Atttackers (3.5)<\/p>\n
Jalgaon Battlers(5) bt Mumbai Movers(1)<\/p>\n
Nagpur Royals(4) bt Ahmednagar Checkers(2)<\/p>\n
Standings after Round 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIt is a great moment for Indian chess,\u201d said a beaming Abhijit Kunte as the inaugural Johnson Tiles Maharashtra Chess League 2013 took off at the PY Hindu Gymkhana. The event, first of its kind in India is organized by Maharashtra Chess Association (MCA) and Pune District Chess Association with Amanora as the associate sponsor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[8632,6293,8635,8633,8634],"class_list":["post-14583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-isn-front-stories","tag-abhijit-kunte","tag-indian-sports-news-network","tag-johnson-tiles-maharashtra-chess-league-2013","tag-maharashtra-chess-association-mca","tag-pune-district-chess-association"],"yoast_head":"\n