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The Marriot Hotel-one of India’s premier hospitality service providers have teamed up with the renowned South Mumbai Chess Academy (SMCA) to work towards the growth and development of chess in India.
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The state-of-the-art facilities at the Marriot Hotel provide the perfect comfort of hosting a tournament like the 2018 Tetrasoft Marriott Open Rated Chess Tournament which was held from September 19-23 in Hyderabad. Organised by Srikanth Malladi of the SMCA, this was one of the many steps taken by the organisation into developing and making the most intellectual sport, a popular one in India.
The event, dubbed as the “IPL of chess” saw a record participation of 274 players out of which 223 were internationally rated from 15 states across India and special units from Southern Railways, ICF Andhra Bank and KVB. It had Rs 5 lac as the prize money and was inaugurated by Shri KS Prasad, the Secretary of Telangana State Chess Association.
IM Saravana Krishnan P from KVB emerged as the champion at the end of it all.
Krishnan was tied with Grandmaster Deepan Chakravarthy J from ICF-both with eight points each and eventually, it was the former who walked out as the winner.
Praising the organisers, Krishnan stated that this was the “strongest” Open Rated tournament he has been a part of in recent times.
India’s oldest and youngest chess players in TV Subramaniam and Ms Samhitha Pungavanam participated in the event. When quizzed about the planning and preparations made for the event, Malladi said,” the planning for this tournament began a year ago..it would not have been possible without the support of our sponsor Tetrasoft. The first edition of the tournament was very well conducted hence this year with their support we could plan bigger. We got into contact with Marriot and the rest is history.” Rama S. Eyunni, CEO of Tetrasoft stated that “… as chess is an intellectual game with various health benefits, we deem it to be an ideal sport to be promoted. It’s also taken up by many as their career hence in terms of skill development it is very beneficial.”
Malladi received a lot of praise all over. “Sir thanks for the wonderfully organised tournament,” said Giri Socgen from Bengaluru.
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Another one added, “Thanks for such a remarkable tournament and hats off to your team … Reaaaaaaally proud to inform that he (son) earned as many as 144.4 ELO points in this tmt to make him rank India’s #1 U-7 chess player…!!! He worked very hard to achieve this.”
Not only the participants but also the attendees were treated with a lot of comfort as one of them, said, “The ambience of the tournament was great for the players, usually GM tournaments are conducted in such huge portals but ‘normal open FIDE’ conducted at the Marriott… we are truly lucky to experience such good ambience, the children were very comfortable and all facilities were well maintained.”
Malladi also spoke about conducting similar tournaments in the future.
“We are looking forward to conducting many more great events with the support of Tetrasoft and Marriott such as GM Open tournament where foreign grandmasters could be invited and 3rd edition of the much-loved tournament conducted here. The planning for the next term of this tournament is being done and we hope that it would be bigger and better, “ he said.
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