Isuru Sri Lanka’s new chess prodigy
Written by Chris Dhambarage
Sunday, 29 April 2012 00:00

He was ranked among the top ten competitors but yet there were some doubts about his success as he was participating at the national chess championships for the first time.

But in a dramatic turn of events 24-year-old Isuru Dhananjaya Lakmal produced a stunning performance to topple some of the more fancied players and emerge as Sri Lanka’s number one chess prodigy.

The BCS final year student at E Soft now representing Sri Lanka Navy SC came out with a stupendous performance to stamp his class and authority by winning the men’s national title for the first time.

“I think I am really lucky to win the national championship and also to earn qualification for the upcoming Chess Olympiad which will be held in Turkey” said a delighted Isuru.

This was a tremendous effort considering the fact that he had very little experience while competing against some of the top chess players in the country and having missed out last year’s nationals by a narrow margin.

“Last year I fell short by just half a point to be selected to play in the nationals and I was pushed to the 14th place in the overall qualification list. In 2008 of course I was selected but could not participate due to examinations.

“This time my initial plan was to represent the country by performing well at the nationals and I never anticipated that I could go the full distance and clinch the men’s championship.

“I managed to snatch an early lead in the competition and I was almost assured of the title when I reached the tenth round and from there onwards I needed only two more points to seal the championship in my favour.

“I had a very poor start to my campaign where I lost against last year’s champion Chamika Perera in my first outing but came back strongly to beat five top competitors and drew against last year’s runner up G. C. Anuruddha.”

Isuru believes that it was the proper coaching methods that he learnt during his school career that has helped him to make progress and to reach higher standards in the game within a short period of time.

“I started playing chess at Dharmaraja College Kandy when I was nine years old under the guidance of my first coach T. S. Mallawarachchi who was ranked Sri Lanka’s number two at that time.

“I am very grateful to my first coach under whom I improved a lot to win a number of titles at junior level. In fact just three years after I started paying chess I had the credit of becoming the all-island under-18 champion in 2004.

“I am really proud of this achievement because this was also the first-ever team championship for Dharmaraja College in the field of chess. After leaving school I represented E Soft in the World University tournament in Malaysia and did well to be placed among the top ten.

“My next target is to compete in more tournaments and to increase my ratings to more than 200 or 300 points so that I could win a FM title at the end.

“I am looking forward to the Chess Olympiad in August where I will be able to increase my ratings and to improve my chances of winning an FM title,” concluded Dhananjaya.

Source: http://www.nation.lk

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