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 IWM and National Champion Vijayalakshmi, handed over a few lessons to eight top class junior players, surpassing them with ease at a time. However, four budding players, including Under-12 Asian champion Abhijith Gupta of Rajasthan, went one up on her humbling the national champion when the latter faced 12 players simultaneously at Calicut on July 7,2000.
The match was part of the one-month Wipro chess coaching camp underway at Hotel Asma Towers, Calicut since June 14,
2000 organised by IT giant Wipro to encourage chess.
GM Maxim Sorokin, coach and captain of Argentina national chess team, was the coach at the training camp. Vijayalakshmi, who was just one norm short of the WGM title, spared a day for her younger brothers and sisters, replying to their queries, giving invaluable tips and clearing their doubts. The participants in the camp included five Asian championship gold medallists with three each from the boys and girls under the age group of 10, 12, 14 and 16 categories. Abhijith Gupta, Abhinav Mekela (AP), Rohit(AP), Sai Sreenivas (AP), CRG Krishnan(AP), Akshay Rajkore(Mah), VKV Sindhu(TN), Rajadarsini(TN), Nabeela Fahreen(TN), Sujana (AP), Priyadarshini(TN) and Nimmy George (Ker) locked horns with Vijayalakshmi. But only Abhijit, Rohit, Akshay and Sindhu were successful against their strong opponent. Later, Deepak Heggan of Wipro said that the company had gifted a computer each to Wipro Ambassadors Aarthie Ramaswamy and P Harikrishna.
The company has plans to organise coaching camps at selected schools in important cities all over India, he added. The sponsorship of chess was part of Wipro's Human Values in action.
Fourteen Indian and foreign GMs, IMs and IWMs would participate in the Wipro international Grandmasters Chess Championship to be held at Taj Residency Hotel, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad from July 15 to 28, 2000 according to Heggan.
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