| The Biel Chess Festival
International Chess Tournament at Biel, Switzerland, which concluded recently, saw the
birth of yet another Indian Chess star. It was none other than our Chennai lad and
reigning National Junior Champion Sundararajan
Kidambi who grew up from boyhood to manhood at the right time. He scalped two seasoned
Grand Masters, namely, GM Cvitan of Croatia and GM Tseitlin of Israel with hard-fought
wins. He drew with three more Grand Masters including our own Grand Master GM Thipsay, GM
Klovans of Latvia and GM Gheorghiu of Romania. With a score of 5.5 pts from nine rounds,
he got his first International Master Norm. Mention must be made of his seventh-round game
with Yugoslav IM Pikula Dejan whom he drew after a marathon battle which lasted for 120
moves. This speaks of his right temperament at the
highest level and coupled with hardwork & preparation, we are bound to hear a lot more
of this Chennai Champion in the days to come.
With two more rounds to go Kidambi can make it an eleven
game IM Norm, if he continues his steady show. An Eleventh Standard student of PSBB
School, K K Nagar, Chennai, Kidambi held a lot of promise for quite sometime in the Indian
circuit with good performances in the Commonwealth Championships in Bikaner and the Asian
Sub Juniorsin Mumbai over the last two years. Winning the National Junior title has done
his confidence a world of good and he struck form at the right time & place. The focus
will be on his next two engagements, The British Open at Scarborough, England, starting
Sunday Aug 1st '99 and the National "B" Chess in Mumbai during the middle of
August. He will be watched with keen interest, as he has a great chance of becoming an
International Master at one go.
Other Indians were overshadowed by the great show put up
by the young champion, from Chennai. The Biel tournament which offered GM Norm chances to
our IM dominated team came to a nought with early losses suffered by our stars. One bright
spot was the Best Junior Prize won by our National Champion Krishnan Sasikiran in the Biel
Blitz Chess. He beat GM Kveinys and GM Sturua on his way to a score of 6/9 finishing 8th
among 40 players. The ninth round, which saw Kidambi making his IM Norm, witnessed another
Indian scoring over a Grand Master. IM V Saravanan beat GM Kalinitschev, of Germany, in a
game arising out of Modern Defence, where he converted his small advantage to a precise
end-game victory.
The contingent moves on to the British Open, over the
weekend, and much will be expected of the players in terms of Norm performances. |
