Person of the Year : Report by By Sameer A.Salgacor - Goa

In a significant development, the popular weekly 'Goa Today' has chosen World Under 8 Girls Champion and Asian Under 7 Schools Champion Ivana Furtado as 'The Person of the Year' for the year 2006.

This catapults Ivana into a new league of Goan celebrities and will increase the visibility of Chess in the State drastically. Besides, to be chosen for this award at such a young age, speaks volumes of Ivana's accomplishments and her significance for chess and sports in the tourist friendly state of Goa. Sponsors will definitely take note and there is sure to be increased funding for chess both from the government and the private parties in the future.

In his editorial, Editor Vinayak Naik mentions that 'we did not have to beat our brains one bit to the selection of our title conferee on this occasion' He then added that 'by virtue of her heroic deeds, Ivana virtually chose herself'. 'It had to be Ivana,' he finally concluded.

'Ivana, incidentally, joins the galactic group of 21 'Goa's Greats' decorated by Goa Today previously, her immediate predecessor being none other than the incumbent Goa Chief Minister, Pratapsingh Rane', Vinayak states.

IM Norm For Srinath

Former world under-12 champion N.Srinath Sponsored by SUN GROUP obtained his first International Master norm when he completed the Hastings Tournament, Masters Section with a 5/9 score on January 5, 2007.

In the final round on Friday, Srinath played a draw against IM Gawain Jones to complete his first IM norm. Giving the news, his father said he is likely to increase his rating by about 50 points. Srinath had won the world Under-12 title at Belfort in France in July 2005 and is one of India's young achievers in chess. Srinath suffered two defeats, and finished in the top of the 92-player 9 round Swiss format event.

Srinath won three games, drew four and lost the first and fifth rounds to complete his mission of making the IM norm in the chilly English winter tournament.

Sasi joined 2700 club!

FIDE has released the quarterly ELO ratings, according to the list, Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran has achieved the 2700 landmark. He has become the second Indian to cross 2700 rating and is now ranked No. 21 in the world. Many other Indians have gained the valuable rating points in this list.

Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika are in the World Top 50 among women. Humpy has gained valuable 22 rating points to reach 2567 while Harika has gained 68 Elo points to reach 2421. Pentala Harikrishna slipped one position, he is no.33 in the world rank. Former world champion Veselin Topalov still tops the rating list, he is just four points higher than Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand.

Download January 2007 FIDE Rating List
Download Indian Rating List 2007

Ganguly wins National A Chess Championship

Grandmaster Surya Sekhar Ganguly won the 44th National 'A' Chess Championship for the fourth consecutive time by drawing his last round game against Grandmaster Neelotpal Das. He remained unbeaten throughout the Championship to pocket Rs 67,000 from total prize money of Rs 2.75 lakhs.

Grandmaster Deepan Chakkravarthy J finished second in the tournament and pocketed a cash prize of Rs 50,000 while International Master Arun Prasad S finished third.
Standings :

1 GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar 9
2 GM Deepan Chakkravarthy 8.5
3 IM Arun Prasad 8.5
4 Rohit G 8
5 IM Suvrajit Saha 8
6 Gopal G N 8
7 GM Kunte Abhijit 8
8 GM Neelotpal Das 8
9 IM Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi 8
10 WGM Harika Dronavalli 7.5
11 IM Gupta Abhijeet 7.5
12 IM Sengupta Deep 7.5

G.N. Gopal is the New International Master

G.N. Gopal of Kerala is on the way to becoming the next International Master (IM) of India as he completed his 3rd and final IM norm in the 9th round of the Atul 44th National A Chess Championship of India in progress here at Atul with a score of 5.5.

17 year old, Gopal, who has opted for open School examinations to concentrate on Chess, is one of the promising chess prospects of India. He gained his 1st norm in the World Junior 2005 at Istanbul and his 2nd norm at Spain in July 2006. He is being coached by veteran IM Verghese Koshy, who himself is a participant here. Koshy said that he was very elated with the achievement of Gopal. The norms and titles were galore on this day as another 17-year old, G.Rohit of Andhra Pradesh earned his 1st IM norm, 25-year old, K.Ratnakaran of Southern Railways completed his well deserved 2nd IM norm and WGM Dronavali Harika also getting her IM norm.

Meanwhile, top-seeded GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly took the sole lead in the event by taking full advantage of a mistake committed by GM Dibyendu Barua in the French defense game to score a full point in just 31 moves. With this win, Ganguly leads the field with a score of 6.5/9. GM Abhijit Kunte climbed back into the 2nd position with a very good win over IM M.R. Venkatesh to join Deepan Chakravarthy and IM S.Arun Prasad in the 2nd spot with a score of 6 points. A big group of 8-playes are on the 3rd spot with a score of 5.5, which includes 16-year old Aswin Jayaram from Chennai, a 1st year commerce student, who has proved that his qualification to this elite event was not a one-off performance.

Hari to play in The 1st ACP World Rapid Cup

The 1st ACP World Rapid Cup is scheduled to take place 4th to 8th January 2007 in Odessa, Ukraine. The event, organized by Bank Pivdennyi, is the final stage of the ACP Tour. The prize fund of the tournament amounts to 136,000 USD. Those who gained the right to participate in the 1st ACP World Rapid Cup are the 14 players who performed best in the ACP Tours held in 2004/2005 and 2005/2006.

The 14 players who will take part in the first ACP WRC are: Alexander Morozevich (Russia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Alexei Shirov (Spain), Etienne Bacrot (France), Sergey Rublevsky (Russia), Evgeny Bareev (Russia), Arkadij Naiditsch (Germany), Pentala Harikrishna (India), Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Victor Bologan (Moldova), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Farrukh Amonatov (Tajikistan) Official Website.