23 wins in 3 hours: GM Sadhwani records another podium finish at world level

By Paritosh Pramanik
October 15, 2020
AT AN age when teenagers find it difficult to sit idle at one place for even a few minutes, Grandmaster Raunak Sadhwani, all of 14 years, carved out stupendous performance in just three hours in
the online chess at international level.
In yet another amazing performance, Nagpur’s only Grandmaster Sadhwani, finished second best in the Arena 960 blitz online chess tournament which was held on lichess.org platform.
Starting with a loss and some inconsistent performance initially, chess prodigy of city Sadhwani recorded whopping 23 wins out of 32 in three hours to claim second spot in the competition which saw around 465 Grandmasters and International Masters participate from around the globe.
The Chess 960 Titled Arena Championship was organised exclusively for titled masters which had three minutes time control.
Sadhwani, who is being rated highly by none other than Grandmaster and former world champion Viswanathan Anand, continued to topple some of the higher rated Grandmasters. He also managed to hold eventual champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan along with some other Grandmasters.
Sadhwani, India’s fourth youngest Grandmaster and Maharashtra’s youngest sportsperson to win Shiv Chhatrapati award, played cleverly which helped him fetch a winning percentage of 72 per cent. He finished with an excellent performance rating of 2521 with 23 wins from 32 boards in the competition garnering 81 points.
His domination was such that Sadhwani, during the middle of the competition, registered 19 victories and four draws.
After starting with a defeat, Sadhwani, recorded a win but lost his third round match. He regained composure and recorded another win but lost his fifth round match. He then registered two back to back wins but couldn’t maintained the winning run.
A quick learner he is, Sadhwani then eked out some splendid performances as he registered six wins on the trot to bounce back in contention of a podium finish.
Two draws with a win in between saw Sadhwani taking control of the game. From then on there was no looking back as the talented GM blasted his way to top of the table with 11 successive wins.
“There was nothing I thought at that time, I just played chess, without thinking about results,” Sadhwani told ‘The Hitavada’ on his slow start to the competition when he bounced back with 11 successive victories after recording not so favourable results.
“I am happy with my performance. Playing with world’s top and strong opponents and finishing on the podium always feels great. 960 is my favourite version in chess. I enjoy playing it,” is how Sadhwani summed up his brilliant performance.

Hockey GK Chikte applies for KIC at his sports academy

By Paritosh Pramanik

October 14, 2020

INDIA goalkeeper Akash Chikte is planning to promote and develop hockey culture in his native Yavatmal district.
Born and brought up in Lohara Village of Yavatmal, Chikte, who has started an academy “Akash Chikte Sports Academy” a few years ago, has applied for the Khelo India Hockey Centre at his academy.
The decision to apply for government-backed Khelo India Centre grant will further boost the promotion of the game in Yavatmal.
In the month of June, the Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports decided to establish 1000 Khelo India Centres (KIC) at district level across the country with the help of sporting champions, who will be remunerated for providing their expertise. The centres will either be run by a past champion or have them as a coach.
“As we strive to make India a sporting superpower, one of the things we have to ensure is that sports become a viable career option for youngsters,” Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju had then said.
According to government’s rules, the first category of athletes who will be considered for the grant are those who have represented India at recognised international competitions under a recognised NSF or association.
Taking advantage of this Chikte, who has represented India in quite a few international events and has helped the country win gold medal as well, decided to apply for the centre at his academy.
Chikte has represented India in over 40 international matches and is a recipient of five international medals including the winning best goalkeeper award at Men’s Asia Cup-2017.
Chikte, who is also a Shiv Chhatrapati award winner, the highest sports award of Maharashtra Government, through his application, stated that Yavatmal has produced more than 50 players who
have participated in national championships.
“At present, there are around 50 players, boys and girls, regularly training at my academy. I think a Khelo India Hockey Centre would definitely help players of the region. This will also be helpful for Maharashtra and will definitely produce players who would one day represent the country,” Chikte, who was part of the silver medal winning Indian team at Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in 2016, told ‘The Hitavada.’
Chikte won gold medal at the Dhaka 10th Asia Cup held in Bangladesh in 2017. He won bronze medal for India in the World Hockey League held at Bhubaneshwar in 2017.
To be eligible for grant under the scheme, the former athlete will be required to personally impart full-time training to athletes at the centre. Organisations which have been promoting sports for at least five years will also be eligible to establish a KIC, provided they recruit past champions as coaches.
The grant to each KIC will be extended for remuneration of the past champion athlete as coach, support staff, purchase of equipment, sports kits, consumable, participation in competition and events. The process of identifying new KICs will be carried out by the sports department of the respective State and Union Territory in liaison with District Collectors and the proposal will be forwarded to the SAI’s regional centre for further evaluation.
“I want more and more players from our region reach international level and play for the country. There is abundance of talent in our players. A full fledged Khelo India hockey centre will only help in boosting the performance and skills of the players,” said Chikte, who had represented Vidarbha and had also played at Nagpur in his initial days. 

GM Dhopade to give online training to beginners

By Paritosh Pramanik
Oct 10, 2020

ENCOURAGED by the huge success to his online chess course, head coach of Chess Pathshala Grandmaster Swapnil Dhopade has decided to move a step further and train budding chess players around the world.
The first Grandmaster of Vidarbha Dhopade has decided to introduce a course exclusively for the beginners.
Earlier this year Dhopade, who has created many a chess champions, had planned to start chess academies at Amravati, Yavatmal and Wani. But due to COVID-19 pandemic he could not start them. However, Dhopade and his team decided to promote chess online and make future champions.
“Now we are concentrating in providing online coaching,” Dhopade told ‘The Hitavada’.
Informing about his new course for the beginners, Dhopade said the course has been divided in three levels which will be of 25 days each.
“The first level will be for students who have learnt rules of the game.
“This is the best course to start with assuming that the players know how to play chess.
“Through this first level, the player will learn the basic mates, captures, defence and tactics. The last part of this level will be test sessions which will evaluate the learning of the player,” he explained.
“The second level will see players learn principles of opening, introduction to various chess openings, basic endgames, a complete opening repertoire from white side and also from the black side.
“This level will also culminate with test sessions,” he added.
“In the last and third level of course, a player will be taught common tactical themes of the game, basic knight endgames, bishop endgames and practical pawn endgames,” said Dhopade who works as Office Superintendent with Central Railways at Nagpur.
“The beginners will also he taught about common mating patterns and will also have playing and analysing sessions with the coach. This level will also end with test sessions,” he added.
The course is getting good response and over 30 players have already enrolled with Chess Pathshala. Not only from India, budding players from the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, UAE and Bangladesh have also joined the course.
The coaches who are working with Chess Pathshala are the ones who are trained by Dhopade himself.
“The coaches are trained by me and they are well versed with the training material,” informed Dhopade who won the GM title in 2015. Dhopade has worked with players like GM Raunak Sadhwani, Sankalp Gupta of Nagpur. Dhopade, who decided to stop playing competitive chess and took coaching three years ago, was coach of Indian women team at the Asian Nations Cup and at Batumi Olympiad 2018.
“I want to produce champions from rural India and specially Maharashtra. There is a lot of potential. They only need the correct guidance.
“That’s what I am trying to do,” Dhopade concluded.