Ten countries to take part in Asian chess championship

Kolkata: More than a hundred top chess players from ten countries, including 20 grandmasters will take part in 16th Asian Team Chess championship to be held at historic Town Hall here from December 20 to 26. Briefing the media here on Saturday Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua, Director of Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy, the organisers of the championship, said ten countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Iran, Yemen, Singapore, Mongolia, Indonesia, Vietnam and runners up India would participate in the championship. Current champion China would not take part this time, he informed.Barua said India would field two teams each both in men and women sections. While K Sashikaran and Satyapragyan will lead the men’s “A” and “B” team respectively, Indian women teams would be spearheaded by D Harika and Nisha Mohta.He said the championship would be inaugurated by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee tomorrow. The champions in the men’s and women’s category would get USD 1000 and USD 700 respectively while the purse for the runner-up teams in men and women section would be USD 750 and USD 500 respectively. Following are Indian teams that would participate in this meet: Men “A”: K Sashikiran (Captain), Surya Sekhar Ganguly, P Harikrishna Parimarjan Negi and Deepan Chakraborty. Men “B”: Satyapragyan (Captain), Deep Sengupta, Himangshu Sharma, B Adhidan and R R Laxman. Women “A”: D Harika (Capt), Eeesha Karvade, Tanya Sachdev, Somya Swaminathan and Krutika Nadhe. Women “B”: Nisha Mohta (Capt), Mary Ann Gomes, Padmini Rout, Bhakti Kulkarni and Nimmy George. PTI