More than 230 individuals took part in the YChess Super League Championship 2020 organized by one of the oldest active chess clubs in the country the Kandy YMCA, who took the initiative in organizing an online super league chess tournament that was held on Monday.
The format was 3m+2s lasting for 90 minutes. With the global lockdown due to Covid-19, online chess has become a very popular mode and it was no exception in Sri Lanka.
All 10 super league chess clubs who qualified for 2020 were invited to take part in this inaugural edition. Unlike the round-robin team tournaments, the players were randomly happy that at a time like this an event of this nature was taking place. In this event a total of 15 players were allowed from each team and points of the first eight players were counted for the final ranking of the team.
The organizers encouraged teams to include two foreigners per team. It was pleasing to see that almost all the invited teams participated in this online event, except two clubs, Navy and Grand Prix.
The entire standard of the tournament was elevated to greater heights as NF3 chess club fielded two GMs, Anandians chess club a couple of foreigners and a GM and an IM, Super Knights an IM and FM and Maroons chess club one Indian.
Established clubs such as Blue & Gold, Japura chess club brought their strongest teams for the battle. Two outstation teams namely Pera Knights and the hosting Kandy YMCA too fielded their full-strength teams and an intense competition was witnessed among all the teams.
A spokesman of the Kandy YMCA Ishan Wiratunga said, “After a fierce battle, Super Knights chess club came on top of the table but unfortunately the organizers had to disqualify them based on the tournament rules as they had fielded 16 players. According to YMCA officials playing of 16 players was not done intentionally, but they had to comply with tournament rules. Consequently Anandians became the champions of YChess Superleague Championship 2020 – Edition 1.
The final results: Champions – Anandians Chess Club Chirashana Lamahewa, 1st Runner up – J’Pura Chess Club led by Pranieth Kumara , 2nd Runner up - Blue & Gold Chess Club led by Pranieth Kumara. Best Player of Finals – IM Himal Gussain (Anandians Chess Club).
The organizers said Kandy YMCA Chess Club would like to extend their appreciation to all the local players, foreign players and team captains who made this event a success.
0 comments:
Post a Comment