India’s young talented chess players Aarush Dolas and Nivaan Khandadia, both from Pune, did the country proud by winning Gold and Bronze medals respectively in the Under-7 category of the World School Chess Championships 2019, which recently concluded in Antalya, Turkey.
The 7-year-old Aarush, studying at the Bishop High School in Pune, bagged the gold as he finished with 8 points from 9 rounds and was a point clear ahead of second placed Alisher Abdsattar of Kazakhstan who picked the silver. Nivaan, from the Global Indian International School, finished half a point behind the Kazakhstan youngster and settled for the third place with 6.5 points.
Aarush showed plenty of confidence and played consistently to comfortably win the first seven rounds before suffering a defeat at the hands of Alisher in the eighth round. But, he quickly put behind that setback and bounced back in style registering a decisive win against Umid Allahverdi of Azerbaijan to pocket the full point in the ninth round and to emerge champion.
Having finished on the podium, both Aarush and Nivaan have now earned Candidate Master (CM) title, which is conferred by FIDE, the World Chess Federation.
A seasoned campaigner, Aarush trains under the guidance and supervision of WIM Mrulalini Kunte, while Nivaan trains with the South Mumbai Chess Academy (SMCA) and he now has the distinction of setting a record by having played over 500 games of competitive chess, given that he competes quite regularly in various tournaments.
Renowned SMCA coach FM Balaji Guttula, while commenting on the outstanding achievement of these youngsters, said, “Both Arush and Nivaan are extremely talented and well-groomed. They have the ability and the hunger for success and in a couple of years from now I can assure that can become India’s next Grandmasters.”
“India already is known as the nursery for producing chess players who soon graduate to become Grandmaster at a young age and it is proven fact. Recently players like Pragnananda and Gukesh have clinched the GM title and many more are set to follow.”
Source:- http://chess-results.com/