Fiji Times - 16/09/09

CHESS candidate masters Manoj Kumar and Calvin Prasad are joint favourites to win Saturday's Courts Homecentres Open Champ-ionship at the Fiji Olympic House, in Suva.

Both players featured prominently in the recent Oceania Zonal Champion-ship in Gold Coast, Aust-ralia, however, pressure will be on schoolteacher Kumar to hit back after a disappointing performance in the National Chess Lea-gue last Sunday.

Veteran Dr Neel Arora, former national rep to the chess Olympiad Asheesh Gautam, Goru Arvind and Asheel Singh will provide tough challenge for the two in the A category while yo-ungsters Ravi Bhavsar, Dhi-raj Chand, Ga-urav Raicar and Wayne Ar-eki will fight it out in the B category.
In the women's division, the experienced Gloria Su-khu holds the edge over her younger counterparts Hil-da Vukikomoala, Aditi Sh-aran and Uma Kumari.

Courts Homecentres ope-rations manager Hamendra Prasad said the company was happy to support and be associated with an intellectual sport like chess.

The sponsors will provide eight valuable prizes for the top place-getters in three categories.

Fiji Chess Federation president Dr Virgilio De Asa is optimistic of a good turn-out particularly from primary and secondary students.

The five-round Swiss system tournament will start at 8.30am.

Meanwhile, Candidate Master (CM) Calvin Prasad took out the National Chess League for a fifth consecutive year on Sunday at the Nasese Medical Centre. Prasad, 29, finished unbeaten with maximum seven points. He has been winning the league since 2004.