Maharashtra Chess League 2013

Cometh April, our TV is full of the Indian Premier League of cricket, that great Indian entertainment juggernaut. You ask, did I say `entertainment’? Of course! You see, in India, e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e watches cricket. Period. It doesn’t matter whether you know any basics of the sport, or for that matter any sport, but you are definitely a Chennai Super Kings fan or a Mumbai Indian sympathizer. After all, how can you be an Indian and not follow the contemporary Gods <sic> Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni!? Unpatriotic. Unsporting.

So, when you are a Chess lover – if a serious one at that - sometimes it’s way too silly to think that we have about 150 titled players in India and more than 5000 FIDE rated players, but don’t yet have a strongly contested Chess League. There are only a handful (just one of them, please) of team competitions, and they are definitely not noteworthy to be of interest to the international audience. No.

Too bold a statement?

You see, we too have a National Team Championship and a National Cities, but these are places mostly you play to make your `employer’ happy (where people mostly play for teams from the same sponsor / employer), and to find a joy trip to a World Cities or an Asian Cities, in case these are held in exotic locales. Simple.

But the strongest team tournament, believe it or not, is like MI-5. It definitely exists; there is fantastic clash of wits going on there in Rapid Chess format; leaving Vishy, almost all the top players of the country are definitely playing there; but of course, it’s almost never mentioned officially anywhere; and if you want to get the games played there – `no kidding, will you’? That would be the annual Inter-Petroleum Team Chess Championship, and I can explain to you, in a real nutshell, how strong it is: there are 3 prominent teams (from a total of about 12 with 4 players and a reserve each), and the captains are Pentala Harikrishna, Krishnan Sasikiran and Surya Ganguly. And then you have about 20 GMs clashing. Easy.

In this background, and if you are still with me, you will really understand the fun when noting that, we have just seen the birth of a Chess League in the state of Maharashtra (Central India). And the delightful spark for organizing this event came from Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte. And the President of Pune Chess, Aniruddha Deshpande. And it will feature some of the best Grandmasters of the country and the developing talent. And they even found ferocious titles of Checkers, Battlers, Movers, Royals, Attackers and Combatants for the teams. And flags and logos for each team. Oh, and most importantly, Corporate Sponsors for the League in Johnson Tiles (`Not just tiles, Lifestyles’, yup…) and for all 6 teams. Yippie!

Ahmednagar Checkers	RBX Sports Ethix
Jalgaon Battlers	Jain Irrigation
Mumbai Movers	Shell Extrusion
Nagpur Royals	Gaikwad-Patil Group
Pune Attackers	Goel Ganga Group
Thane Comatants	MEP Infrastructure Developers

Delightful of all, the idea found an interested supporter in our own Vishy Anand, who, in between his very relaxed schedule of London-Wijk-Zurich-Baden and ParisStPetersburg-Stavanger-Moscow, really flew over to the host city of Pune for the event announcement and unveil the Logo (03^rd April 2013). Needless to say, he charmed everyone there, and confirmed the Corporate Sponsors on the wisdom of their choices. Fantastic.

(Doing what we do well, short and witty)

Maharashtra Chess is stewarded by Dilip Pagay (Secretary) and Ravindra Dongre (Chairman), who were active formidable Chess players themselves in their day. Fittingly as they have become administrators, and joined with Kunte and Deshpande, meant that the event oozed with elegance and professionalism, as witnessed during the ceremonies.

 

 (It really Was as it seems to Be - Classy)

(The Men who are with the League, while releasing the Logo: From Right Extreme, Dilip Pagay, Abhijit Kunte, and Ravindra Dongre… And to the left of Vishy is Ashok Jain (President of Maharashtra Chess), and to his right is the bearded Aniruddha Deshpande)

A small digression here: Marathi – native of the language of Maharashtra, as well as the way you denote a person from the state – names have their own peculiarity and charm. The most common way the surnames of Marathi-s end with an –‘ar (as it ends in f`ur’) or ‘-e (d`ay’), but not as in English. So, if you meet a guy in Mumbai or Pune with a surname of `Mate’, don’t ever assume that his anscestors were the regular Australian Friendlies or crazy Chess Players. He would actually like to call you as `(Mr) Mate’ with a combination of `Ma’ from `Ma’rs, and `te’ from `te’n. `Ma-te’. And no sir, they didn’t make it that way just to have some fun out of the hapless Brit when they stayed here too long. No. True.

So, unlike a westerner, a Marathi More can actually be contended with enough, while  a Bore is actually fun to talk to. But what would be sadistic of me is, to you who thought `Venkatachalam Saravanan’ and `Sundararajan Kidambi’ difficult, to throw Marathi surnames at the unsuspecting you now and ask you to really pronounce a Ghate, Khairnare, Karvade, Khedge, Barve, Bhere, Bade, Lele, Kopragade… Fun!

So, now, when you meet the Marathi Indian Chess Player next time, you know how to call him… (Dongre - `Don’t, `Gre’at; Kunte – Mila `Kun’is, `Te’n). (Apologies – Ashton Klutcher). Practice.

Conquering Boris is not exactly fresh on our minds still, as Magnus is very much on our radars, already. But now that he came all the way, we definitely made sure that Vishy was felicitated, and put through questions by an enthusiastic audience. And we did that in class too, in a lovely setting, in a brilliant fading evening light. Again, it was a memorable event ending with an ovation for Vishy. Standing.

(Again, it really Was as it seems to Be - Picturesque)

(A deserved greeting)

Then to the delight of the pool of players who had signed up, the team owners went through a competitive bidding process (13^th April, 2013) to select the players for their teams through an auction; They had a total of Rs.3,00,000/- (About 5800 $) in their kitty for each team, from which they had to secure minimum of a GM, and IM, a WGM, and a woman player per team. And thanks to the aggressive bidding, some of the players have been left grinning ear to ear and,…all of them smiling. Nice.

(Raising hands and Getting their Men and Women)

And the mix came up as thus:

Ahmednagar Checkers

GN. Gopal, GM 2526

MR. Venkatesh, GM 2508

Tania Sachdev, WGM 2409

Shardul Gagare, IM 2397

Sagar Shah 2376

Mithil Ajgaonkar 2207

Rucha Pujari 2132

Jalgaon Battlers

Vidit Gujarathi, GM 2549

Eesha Karavade, WGM 2389

S.Meenakshi, WGM 2237

Narayanan Srinath, IM 2440 Sameer Kathmale 2325

SL. Narayanan

Pratik Patil

Mumbai Movers

S. Arun Prasad, GM 2521

RR. Laxman, GM 2429

Kiran Manisha Mohanty, WGM 2195

Kruttika Nadig, WGM 2141

Ashwin Jayaram, IM 2472

Anup Deshmukh, IM 2254

Rakesh Kulkarni 2277

Shashikant Kutwal 2264

Nagpur Royals

Tejas Bakre, GM 2488

Sahaj Grover, GM 2467

Soumya Swaminathan, WGM 2300

Swapnil Dhopade, IM 2475

Chinmay Kulkarni 2268

Shweta Gole 1934

Abhishek Kelkar 2274

Pune Attackers

MR. Lalith Babu, GM 2565

Padmini Rout, WGM 2347

Swati Ghate, WGM 2260

Akshayraj Kore, IM 2512

Himanshu Sharma, IM 2403

Amardeep Bartakke 2200

Thane Combatants

Surya Shekhar Ganguly, GM 2623

Mary Ann Gomes, WGM 2387

S.Vijayalakshmi, WGM 2378

Aditya Udeshi, IM 2416

Prathamesh Mokal, IM 2389

Abhimanyu Puranik 2183

Parnali Dharia 1901

Surya Sekhar Ganguly, the costliest man standing (Rs.115,000 = 2,150 US $), for Thane Combatants…

Swapnil Dhopade, (`Though’, `Pu’g, `Day’) the costliest non-GM, bought for a cool Rs.81,000 = 1500 US $), for Nagpur Royals. As the story goes, he was bought for more money than the Grandmasters of his team, which means the age old cliché: `Watchout for Swapnil’ …

The formidable looking trio of Gopal, Venkatesh and Tania, for Ahmednagar Checkers…

The young hands of Jalgaon Battlers, Vidit, Eesha and Srinath…

 Energetic band of Mumbai Movers, Arun Prasad, Laxman, Kruttika & Ashwin…

And now everything’s set, and the event is ready for a kickoff. So, the Mahrashtra Chess League, sponsored by Johnson Tiles, will be held in a 6 board format of Rapid Chess from 24^th to 28^th April 2013 at Hindu Gymkhana, Pune, Maharashtra. All the prominent players of Maharashtra will be there, and many more Grandmasters and Woman Grandmasters. There will be an initial round robin between all the teams, followed by semi-finals and finals. And games will be broadcast live at the official website, http://mcl.chess.me/. So, watch this space… Ready.