Brothers Anddru and Ayestain grab major honours in 2nd Jaffna Chess festival
View(s):Anddru and A. Ayestian, two brothers from Jaffna Hindu College, stole the limelight by emerging Champion and Runner Up in the FIDE Rated Open Men’s Chess Tournament of the second Jaffna Chess Festival, held at Vaitheeswara College, Jaffna. 
Others to hit the headlines in the Women’s Open were S. Viththiyaranei, a private Chess Coach in Jaffna, who became the champion and M. Gowthami of Vadamaradchi Hindu Ladies College, who secured the Runner Up berth. The winners were awarded cash prizes of Rs. 10,000/- while the Runners Up were awarded Rs. 6,000/-. Prizes were distributed by A. Arunagirinathan, an instructor at the English Language Teaching Center (ELTC), University of Jaffna, who was the Chief Guest at the occasion.
This tournament, which attracted over 200 participants, was organized by the Jaffna District Chess Association (JDCA) on behalf of the Fédération Internationale des échecs (FIDE) and Chess Federation of SriLanka.
The objective of the tournament was to create FIDE-rated players for the national team.
The Chess Federation of SriLanka runs chess tournaments in four different categories: Novices, Majors, National B and National A. The Novices tournament is held in Colombo. The winners of the Novices will go into majors tournament along with the FIDE rated players. It will be of interest to note that the majors tournament will be held in Jaffna for the first time after 30 years, from February 7 to 11. It was last held in Jaffna in 1983. The conflict in the North prevented the tournament’s continuation.
According to the Secretary of the JDCA, K. Athavan, Chess is slowly but steadily catching up in the North with lot of interest being generated in schools and in the University of Jaffna.- Sam Hensman, Jaffna.
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