Chess Gurukul wins Indian chess league

FIDE Online Chess Olympiad to start on July 25

Chennai:

Chess Gurukul, comprising young Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa and Karthikeyan Murali, beat Super kids in the ‘Superfinal’ on Sunday to win Indian chess.com League.

Praggnanandhaa drew his game against fellow prodigy and GM Nihal Sarin to help Chess Gurukul captained by noted coach R B Ramesh clinch the title.

In an earlier game of the seven-match ‘Superfinal’, Murali had settled for a draw with Arjun Erigaisi after he had beaten young GM Raunak Sadhwani. He had also posted an important win for his team, beating Narayanan Srinath.

The winning team received a prize money of Rs 35,000.

Superkids and Chess Gurukul had qualified for the summit clash after finishing first and second respectively in the 10-team round-robin phase.

The event, which saw around 25 Indian Grandmasters participate, was sponsored by Sukooon Resorts and was played on a blitz format.

Among those who took part were India No.6 S P Sethuraman, the world’s second youngest Grandmaster ever D Gukesh, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Narayanan Srinath, Tania Sachdev and Divya Deshmukh, apart from Praggnanandhaa and Sarin.