Dronavalli Harika - Second Woman To Become GM From India!

Dronavalli Harika, born 12 January 1991 (12--01-1991; age 20) of Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, India achieved one of her dreams today as she became the second woman from India, after Koneru Humpy of the same state Andra Pradesh, to become a Grand Master (GM), following her fine display at the 1st Hangzhou Women’s Grandmasters Tournament in China, where she finished third with 5.5 points.

In the 1st Hangzhou Women’s Grandmasters Tournament in China Harika won two of her games and drew seven to remain undefeated in the round robin tournament in which the top ten women players in the world took part. The 20 year old Harika, who is a former world junior girls’ champion, already had 2 GM norms going into the tournament & achieved the final norm from Hangzhou to make her a GM! To become a GM one has to secure 3 GM Norms & cross the Elo 2500, which she has now as her July 2011 Elo is 2513!

Learned to play chess at age 7, Harika came to prominence winning the Asian Under 10 Championship and the Asian Under 12 Championship. In 2011 she won the Asian Individual Women Chess Championship! She had already bagged the titles of Woman Grandmaster (WGM in 2004) and International Master (IM in 2007) before. Her peak Elo is 2525 which she achieved in the November 2010 rating list!

Harika, who is a vegetarian, is the gold medal winner at this year’s Asian women’s championship in Iran, silver medal winner in the Commonwealth Championship in South Africa and bronze medal winner at last year’s Asian Games in Guangzhou! She had undergone special training at Pune at the chess camp by Kazakh GM Evgeny Vladimirov. Harika is supported by Pune - based sponsors Lakshya and Flame!

Dronavalli Harika's Achievements!

* She won the silver medal in the Women's category at the Commonwealth Chess Championship 2003 in Mumbai.

* She has won three World Youth Chess Championship titles: in 2004, she won the Girls Under 14 in Heraklio, Greece, and in 2006, she won the Girls Under 18 in Batumi, Georgia.

* In 2008, she took the Girl's title at the World Junior Chess Championship at Gaziantep, Turkey, winning with a point to spare.

* She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 2007.

* She won Bronze medal in 2010 Asian Games in Woman's individual rapid event.

* She reached quarterfinal stage of Women's World Chess Championship 2010.

* She achieved a rare feat to earn the Grandmaster title. She is the second Indian woman after Koneru Humpy to attain this top-most honour.

MANGALORE FIDE RATED CHESS TOURNAMENT 2011 – A REPORT!

421 players participated, against an expected 500, in the 5th Mangalore FIDE Rated International Open Chess Tournament 2011, which concluded here today on 23-07-2011. Against the reported expectation of 5 GM participants only 3 ( GM Laxman R R 2455 of Indian Coach Factory, GM Thipsay Praveen M 2444 of Maharashtra & GM Sriram Jha 2421 of Delhi) appeared in the players list!

In the 11 Round tournament an unexpected winner emerged in the form of Abhishek Das (Elo 2340, seeded 22nd at the beginning of the tournament) of South Western Railways, who scored a much creditable 9.5 points out of a possible 11!

In the last round, on the second board, Abhishek played a nice game to defeat IM Konguvel (8 pts, TN, Elo 2400) sitting behind the black pieces, making him reach 9.5 points where no one else challenged him for the first prize! On the top board, IM Suvrajit Saha (2362) of West Bengal, playing white, drew IM Shyam Nikil P (2398) of TN to secure the second spot on a better tie break with 9 points! IM Tejkumar MS (2448) of SWRly defeated IM Saptarshi Roy (2385) of Railways with black to reach on 9 points & secured the 3rd spot with a better tie breaking score over IM Shyam Nikil who also reached on 9 points; Shyam Nikil finished 4th!

Karnataka lad GA Stany (2435) secured the fifth position with 8.5points & a better tie break score! In the last round, playing black, he drew IM Sivananda B.S (2396) of Karnataka on 4th board. IM Sangma Rahul (2359,Delhi) who defeated IM Nitin S (2365) on board 5, IM Shivananda B S (2396, Karnataka), IM Himanshu Sharma (2428, Haryana) who defeated Premnath R (2271) on board 7, playing black, IM Praveen Kumar C (2325, Indian Coach Factory) who defeated Shreyansh Dakhlia (2298), playing black & Karthikeyan Murali (2122,Tamilnadu) who defeated IM Anwesh Upadhyaya (2429), playing black, completed the top ten!

The entire tournament was well fought in such a fierce way that the 3 participating GMs failed to find themselves in the TOP 10 & much to the amusement of the chess lovers the highest standing among the GMs was that of veteran GM Praveen Thipsay who managed to stay at the 20th position with 8 points and better tie breaks;

GMs R.R. Laxman & Sriram Jha finished 26th & 32th respectively! The total prize money of Rs/-5,55,555 was well spent on this great tournament as from the first round onwards the prizes were never guaranteed to any player in the tournament & till the last round for each of the prize winning positions the fight was up to the hilt and the GM titles & IM titles never created any fear in the minds of the serious fighters of this wonderful tournament!


Photos by CHESS GM PROJECT participant Karthik Jagannatha.