September 8-14th in Kathmandu, Nepal
Kathmandu: The Himalayan Chess Club are organising the first Himalayan Grand Masters International Chess Tournament here from September 8-14.
The tournament will see at least five Grand Masters (GM) and 10 International Masters (IM) competing with the Nepali players. In all 40 players from India, Bangladesh, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and hosts Nepal will compete in the tournament to be played under Swiss League Format for nine rounds.
Indian GMs Dibyendu Barua and Sriram Jha and Bangladeshi GMs Inamul Hossain and Niaz Murshid have already confirmed their participation in the event. The IMs from India – Saptarshi Roy Chaudhary, Attanu Lahiri, Somak Talit are also featuring in the tournament along with FM Akshyat Khamapariya. Roy was the winner of the recently held first Lalitpur Cup Open International Rating Chess Tournament.
Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury
From Nepal, 20 players will be on the fray including Fide Master Manish Hamal, Nepal Champion Badri Lal Nepali, Bimal Lal Shrestha, Prachanda Man Malakar, Keshav Shrestha and Uttamraj Thapa. The latter five players are also set to compete in the 39th Chess Olympiad slated for September in Russia.
According to the organisers, players with more than 2,200 rating points from Singapore and Thailand are also taking part in the tournament which is claimed to be Nepal’s biggest ever cash prize chess event. The winner will bag Rs 75,000 while the runner up will receive Rs 52,500 and the third place finisher will bag a purse of Rs 37,500. The fourth and the fifth place finishers will take home Rs 22,500 and 15,000 respectively. Likewise, the sixth and seventh finishers will take in Rs 11,250 each, while eight to 10th closers get Rs 7,500 each.
The top performer from Nepal will pocket Rs 7,500, while second and third will bag Rs 3,750 each. The invited GMs will be provided with Rs 22,500 as match money, while the IMs will be given Rs 7,500 each.
News courtesy of The Himalayan Times
Preliminary list of participants:
1 GM Timoshenko Georgy UKR 2562
2 GM Mohr Georg SLO 2511
3 GM Iuldachev Saidali UZB 2496
4 GM Dzhumaev Marat UZB 2487
5 GM Sriram Jha IND 2455
6 IM Himanshu Sharma IND 2401
7 IM Venkatesh M R IND 2400
8 IM Praveen Kumar C IND 2380
9 IM Saptarshi Roy IND 2374
10 FM Minhazuddin Ahmed BAN 2368
11 FM Abu Sufian Shakil BAN 2361
12 FM Sauravh Khherdekar IND 2345
13 IM Lahiri Atanu IND 2341
14 IM Thomas Ian ENG 2334
15 FM Hasan Mehdi BAN 2322
16 FM Akshat Khamparia IND 2319
17 FM Mohammad Javed BAN 2290
18 Chatterjee Debaraj BAN 2288
19 WGM Maisuradze Nino FRA 2273
20 FM Rahman Syed Mahfuzur BAN 2255
21 Roy Prantik IND 2163
22 Luca Ionel ROU 2153
23 Anuruddha G C SRI 2144
24 WFM Mihevc-Mohr Narcisa SLO 2142
25 Nepali Badrilal NEP 2135
26 Shrestha Keshav NEP 2122
27 Shrestha Bilam Lal NEP 2096
28 Rajbahak Anil NEP 2075
29 Duwal Ganesh Man NEP 2065
30 Shrestha Janardan NEP 2062
31 FM Hamal Manish NEP 2057
32 Karmacharya Punya Man NEP 2030
33 Thapa Uttam Raj NEP 2029
34 Tandukar Naveen NEP 1992
35 Napit Balaram NEP 1976
36 Malakar Prachand Man NEP 1959
37 Maharjan Prem Krishna NEP 1956
38 Byanjankar Ratna NEP 1953
39 Shrestha Shyam Sundar NEP 1921
40 Lama Dharam Bahadur NEP 1919
41 Prajapati Niranjan NEP 1918
42 Biswajit Bharadwaj IND 1898
43 Shrestha Vijay J NEP 1878
44 Rajthala Dhirab NEP 1841
45 Chaulagain Harichandra NEP 1823
