Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, May 23: The biggest chess extravaganza – the eighth KIIT International Chess Festival will be unveiled here Sunday. This is the stage where friends turn into foes and rivals turn into bitter enemies. For the next eight days, the KIIT complex will be the battleground for the soldiers of 64 squares.
The Indian challenge will be led by Orissa GM Debashis Das and GM and Sandeepan Chanda of West Bengal.
So far, 518 players have registered for the tournament and 21 of them are Grandmasters (GMs). Among the foreign players, nine are from Bangladesh, five each from Georgia and Ukraine, four from Russia, three from USA. “The registration will go on till Sunday morning. So the numbers of participants will definitely be over 700 in the three categories,” informed Gaganendu Dash, sports director.
Dmitry Kokarev of Russia with 2635 Elo rating points is the top seed of the tournament. He is followed by Alexandar Zubbov of Ukraine and Aleksej Aleksandrov who are seeded second and third respectively.
