Esandi Newansa grabs championship
Piyumi Amarathunga
The Sri Lanka Online Youth Under-16 Girls Rapid Chess Championship 2021 came to a remarkable end with four players scoring six points each out of possible seven games topping the ranking table, wrapping up the tournament. The young Chess sensation Esandi Newansa of Dharmasoka College, Ambalangoda became the champion with the better tie-breaker. Esandi showed an impressive performance throughout the tournament where in the day one she scored 4/4 points and in the day two of the tournament she scored 2/3 points by beating, Ashvini Pavalachandran, who is a women’s national team contender and Desandhi Gamage but lost her last game against Tharushi Sandeepani making her score 6/7 to win the championship.
The runner-up was Piyumi Amarathunga of JMC College, Kalutara who scored 6 from 7 games. After winning all the four games in the day one of the tournament, Piyumi lost her first game in the day two to Desandhi Gamage but regained her momentum by beating H.M.M.D. Herath and Ashvini Pavalachandran.
Esandi Newansa
Desandhi Gamage of Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya won the bronze Medal with a score of 6 out of 7 games by beating Piyumi Amarathunga and Devindya Gunawardhana. But she lost against Esandi Newansa.
Though Tharushi Sandeepani, who is a member of the women’s national team, was ranked below earlier, she came back strongly to share the leaders with 6 out of 7 points by scoring 3 out of three in the second day. Unfortunately, she had to accept the fourth due to the poor tie-breaker.
The Sri Lanka Online Under-16 Girls Youth Rapid Chess Championship 2021 was organised by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka. The tournament started on May 15 via the Chess.com platform and ended on May 16, with strict anti-cheating measures and throughout supervision of players by arbiters.
Tharushi Sandeepani
Players were allowed only to play with a laptop/desktop computer and possession of any other device/equipment was prohibited. Players were instructed to login to their Chess.com accounts with their real name and real photo; zoom application was used to gain live feed of the players by arbiters.
All games after finishing were sent to chess.com and FIDE anti-cheating specialists for inspection. Any player found guilty of cheating or any other violation of the rules was subjected to a 2-year ban of playing competitive chess by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka.
Desandhi Gamage
The champion was awarded with the trophy, gold medal and a certificate while the runner-up and second runner-up were awarded with silver and bronze medals respectively along with certificates. Rest of the top rankers were issued with certificates under CFSL policy.
With a thorough aim of engaging the young Chess prodigies of Sri Lanka to keep playing chess and loving the sport, the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka organised the tournament amidst a global pandemic adding up another successfully ended event to their calendar.
The tournament consisted of 70 players and the top 10 rankings after the final round is mentioned below.
1: Esandi Newansa (Dharmasoka College Galle) 6 points
2: Piyumi Amarathunga (JMC College International Kalutara) 6 points
3: Desandhi Gamage (Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya) 6 points
4: Tharushi Sandeepani (Devi Balika Vidyalaya) 6 points
5: Tenuli Rathnayake (Ananda Balika Vidyalaya Colombo) 5.5 points
6: Ashvini Pavalachandran (Wycherley International School) 5 points
7: Prasansa Premanath (Girls’ High School Kandy) 5 points
8: Nemindi Ramanayake (Veyangoda Bandaranayake Central) 5 points
9: Oneli Wilvalaarachchi (Gothami Balika Vidyalaya) 5 points
10: H.M.M.D. Herath (Maliyadeva Balika Vidyalaya) 5 points