GM Abhijeet spearheads Indian chess challenge against Armenia
Posted: 6:41p.m IST, November 27, 2008

New Delhi, Nov 27 (IANS) Grandmaster and World Junior Champion Abhijeet Gupta will spearhead the Indian challenge in the 1st India-Armenia Friendship Chess match that starts here Sunday at the Russian Centre for Science, Arts and Culture.

Gupta, who emulated Viswanathan Anand and P. Harikrishna and became the third Indian in the history to become the World Junior Champion recently, will be playing on top board for the Indian team comprising players less than 21 years of age.

Grandmaster S. Arun Prasad, who recently got his GM title, World Under-16 Champion B. Adhiban and GM norm holders G. Rohit and Deep Sengupta complete the Indian line-up.

The Armenian team will be led by 2006 World Junior champion and Grandmaster Zaven Andriasian. Young and strong players like Hrant Melkumyan, Avetik Grigoryan and Ter Sahakyan are the other three Armenians in the fray and the team will be supported by famous Grandmaster Smbat Lputian who will be the trainer of the team.

‘This is the first of its kind match in India and we, in the All India Chess Federation (AICF), are sure this will go a long way in making our players much stronger. These young players are future of India and it might happen that one or two amongst these will be representing India in the 33rd Chess Olympiad in 2010,’ said AICF treasurer Bharat Singh Chauhan.

The first match ever between the two countries will be played over three days and there will be three games under FIDE’s normal time control. Each team will get 12 games in all over four boards and the each day score will be taken in to account to determine the winner.

The Armenian juniors can be expected to be in full swing after their team won the Chess Olympiad for the second time running just a couple of days back. The Indian team looks in fine fettle too and the chess buffs can expect a great contest between the young players of the two countries. The matches will be beamed live on www.delhichess.com

Source: http://news.smashits.com

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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