MARGAO
FIDE Master (FM) Nitish Belurkar is crowned the champion of the 1st Goa Online Chess league, which was a 12-match online league series organised by each of the 12 Taluka chess associations under the aegis of Goa Chess Association.
Nitish, who only last month, was crowned champion in Category E of the Manohar Parrikar International Open Grandmaster Online Chess Tournament, continued his good form, as he won the last league match organised by Dharbandora Taluka Chess Association, scoring 8.5 points in 9 rounds. Ritviz Parab had won gold medals in the last three matches, creating a close contest and the final winner was decided only in the last league match.
The runners up Ritviz Parab, with 7.5 points was placed second while Ayush Shirodkar , with 7 points was placed third in this last league match. The total prize money for this league was Rs 1.20 lakh and the same was promoted by GCA to keep chess activities live as offline events could not be conducted due to the Covid19 situation.
Nitish came up with his best performance in this online league by winning medals in each of the 12 league matches, as he won 6 Gold, 5 Silver and 1 bronze medal for a tally of 12 medals, thus winning the league Gold medal . Ritviz Parab finished second and won the league silver medal with a tally of 8 medals which included 5 Gold and 3 silver medals. Vivaan Ballikar with 1 Gold and 1 bronze had a tally of 2 medals and was palced third and won the league bronze medal . Mandar Laad (3 Silver , 2 Bronze), Shekhar Sirsat (1 Silver), Devesh Naik (3 Bronze), Aayush Shirodkar (2 Bronze) and Sairaj Vernekar, Shane Braganca , Parth Salvi (1 Bronze each) took up the 4th to 10th place.
Other prize winners of the 12 match series were WCM Swera Braganca (Best Woman above 15), Vasant Naik (Best Veteran, above 45) , Saras Powar and Aditya Dublay (1st and 2nd Under 7 Boys), Diya Sawal and Muriel Fernandes (1st and 2nd Under 7 Girls), Ethan Vaz and Aditya Tamba (1st and 2nd Under 9 Boys), Vaishnavi Parab and Saeeja Dessai (1st and 2nd Under 9 Girls), Edrick Vaz and Aniket Ekka (1st and 2nd Under 11 Boys), Arya Dublay and Valanka Fernandes (1st and 2nd Under 11 Girls), Joy kakodkar and Love Kakodkar (1st and 2nd Under 13 Boys), Sayuri Naik and Netra Savaikar (1st and 2nd Under 13 Girls).
GCA formed a technical committee as a anti-cheating measure in this online chess tournament format as cheating by using chess programmes in this format has become a global issue and in two instances, players were disqualified from the matches on the findings of the committee.
