Fiji Sun - 21/09/09

The Fiji Chess Federation’s Invitational National Championship in December would be open for overseas players to participate.

FCF president Dr Virgilio De Asa said the tournament would be a Federation of International des Euchess (FIDE, world governing chess body) rated one. He said this was part of their move to expose local players to high level competition. The national championship is scheduled to be held on December 5-12. “Our next plan is have the championship in December. The top local players are playing against each other and know the moves. We want to expose them to high level competition.

“This championship will be a FIDE rated and will be open for overseas participants,” De Asa said.

On the other hand Candidate Master Manoj Kumar took out the 2009 Courts Homecentres Open Chess Championship at the Fiji Olympic House in Suva last Saturday.

His points totaled up to 4.5/5. FCF league winner CM Calvin Prasad came in second place with 4/5 while Dr. Neel Arora settled for third 2.5/5.

“Calvin only lost to Manoj in the second round and was undefeated. Manoj and Calvin the top two local players are winning one tournament after the other this year. Last week Calvin won the chess league and this week Manoj the tournament,” De Asa said.

In other results Kong Man Yuen won the junior grade, Esha Raicar was the best primary school student and Dhiraj Chand best secondary school player.

“The competition was tough as higher ranked players played a separate competition from the lowly rated. It is good that the highly rated players play together for a while to get better,” De Asa said.

He added that the next local tournament would be the Fiji Day Open.