Murshed’s absence pales meet

MUMBAI, MARCH 6: The Datamatics Asian Zonal Championships 3.1 (B) has almost become an exclusive Indian Championships. The cream of India...

MUMBAI, MARCH 6: The Datamatics Asian Zonal Championships 3.1 (B) has almost become an exclusive Indian Championships. The cream of India’s players will be participating with a sprinkling of foreign talent.

Six of the players in men’s and women’s sections are Indians. The tournament has lost some of its gloss due to the uncertainty over the arrival of Bangladeshi Grandmaster Niaz Murshed. Murshed’s absence makes it an IM tournament, giving GM norm holders Abhijit Kunte and Krishnan Sasikiran the heart burns.

But for the likes of V Saravanan (2396) and Anup Deshmukh (2430), there is the IM title at stake if one of them wins the title.

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“Without Murshed, the fight will be essentially between Indians,” said GM Dibyendu Barua, who will be the top seed at his Elo rating of 2538. Sasikiran is the next strongest player at 2535 followed by Kunte (2455) and Pravin Thipsay (2467). All these players have the berth for the World Chess Championships at stake if they are among the top two.

The other participantsinclude IM Zia-Ur-Rehman and Al Raqeeb of Bangladesh, Mohammed Lodhi and M Waqar of Pakistan, and Nepal player Badri Nepali.Barua has a good fight on his hands especially from the likes of Sasikiran and Kunte. There is, of course, the experienced Thipsay, who won a board prize in the National team event at Chennai. The men’s tournament will be played over 11 rounds with each player getting a bye. In the women’s section, the field is dominated by Indians with IWM’s S Vijayalakshmi, Bhagyashree Thipsay, N Sarita Reddy, Nisha Mohota, Pallavi Shah and Swati Ghate participating. The two foreign participants are Rani Hamid and Shabana Praveen of Bangladesh.

The women’s event will be played over seven rounds with the winner getting a berth for the World Chess Championships at Las Vegas in June.