Smash Hits, India
Nov 28 2008

GM Abhijeet spearheads Indian chess challenge against Armenia

Posted: 6:41p.m IST, November 27, 2008

New Delhi, Nov 27 (IANS) Grandmaster and World Junior Champion
Abhijeet Gupta will spearhead the Indian challenge in the 1st
India-Armenia Friendship Chess match that starts here Sunday at the
Russian Centre for Science, Arts and Culture.

Gupta, who emulated Viswanathan Anand and P. Harikrishna and became
the third Indian in the history to become the World Junior Champion
recently, will be playing on top board for the Indian team comprising
players less than 21 years of age.

Grandmaster S. Arun Prasad, who recently got his GM title, World
Under-16 Champion B. Adhiban and GM norm holders G. Rohit and Deep
Sengupta complete the Indian line-up.

The Armenian team will be led by 2006 World Junior champion and
Grandmaster Zaven Andriasian. Young and strong players like Hrant
Melkumyan, Avetik Grigoryan and Ter Sahakyan are the other three
Armenians in the fray and the team will be supported by famous
Grandmaster Smbat Lputian who will be the trainer of the team.

‘This is the first of its kind match in India and we, in the All India
Chess Federation (AICF), are sure this will go a long way in making
our players much stronger. These young players are future of India and
it might happen that one or two amongst these will be representing
India in the 33rd Chess Olympiad in 2010,’ said AICF treasurer Bharat
Singh Chauhan.

The first match ever between the two countries will be played over
three days and there will be three games under FIDE’s normal time
control. Each team will get 12 games in all over four boards and the
each day score will be taken in to account to determine the winner.

The Armenian juniors can be expected to be in full swing after their
team won the Chess Olympiad for the second time running just a couple
of days back. The Indian team looks in fine fettle too and the chess
buffs can expect a great contest between the young players of the two
countries. The matches will be beamed live on

2/GM-Abhijeet-spearheads-Indian-chess-challenge-ag ainst-Armenia.htm
From: Baghdasarian