Cyrus, Ivana champions U-11 State Chess

Cyrus Pereira of Our Lady of Rosary High School, Miramar and top seed Ivana Furtado of Our Lady of Rosary High School, Dona Paula finished champions in the under-11 State chess selection tournament. Cyrus garnered 7.5 points out of a possible 8 to finish champion. In the penultimate round, Cyrus defeated top seed Niraj Saripalli in a scintillating end game.

Chinmay Patil (Sharada Madir) finished second and qualified to represent Goa at the Nationals. M Harikrishna (Ezekeil Methododist High School, Bambolim) and Pranav Zantye (Sharada Mandir) finished third and fourth respectively.

World under-8 champion and top seed Ivana Furtado (5 points) lived up to her top billing.,She defeated Gauri Hadkonkar in the final game and remained unbeaten, winning all her games. Vaishakhi Pilankar (4 points) of Saraswat Vidyalaya, Mapusa finished second while Krupa Shirodkar (Saraswat Vidyalaya) and Varshitha Reddy (Sharada Mandir) finished third and fourth respectively.

Anuradha and Chinmay make it to FIDE List.

Two more Goan youngsters - Anuradha Chavan (ELO 1766) and Chinmay Patil (ELO 1762) -made itto the FIDE Rating list which was published earlier this month. With these two, the total number of FIDE Rated Goan players goes up to thirty two.

Among other active players, Anurag Mhamal has shown the best performance in the present Rating List. His rating (ELO 2006) has shot up by a whopping 85 ELO points. In the recent past, he has defeated current National Under 25 Champion Arjun Tiwari (ELO 2238) and upcoming players such as Vikas Sharma (ELO 2206) and Sushant Banerjee (ELO 2171). He will be next playing in the Jolly Club Open in Pune before attempting to win the Goa State Championship for the first time.

Three time consecutive winner and reigning Goa State Champion Woman FIDE Master Bhakti Kulkarni's rating moved up by 6 points to 2112. The Commonwealth Under 18 Champion's main goal this year will be to retain her Goa Champion status as well as win the World Youth Under 16 Girls Championship to be held in Turkey later this year.