Bhubaneswar: Former World Junior Girls’ champion Elisabeth Paehtz of Germany starts as the top seed in the AICF-KIIT Chess Cup that starts here at Campus – 6 of KIIT University.

India’s strongest ever women tournament will kick off with a glittering opening ceremony slated on the 17th of March. In all five Indians and five overseas players complete the line up for the Rs. 920000/- prize money tournament.

Elina Danilian of Armenia her compatriot Lilit Mkrtchian, Girya Olga of Russia, Cristina Foisor of France and reigning world junior girls’ champion Guo Qi of China complete the line-up of overseas players.

The Indian challenge will be spearheaded by national women’s champion Mary Ann Gomes who also starts as the highest rated Indian in the fray.

Local stars and Woman Grandmasters Padmini Rout and Kiran Manisha Mohanty will hog the limelight in the first ever round-robin women’s tournament on Indian soil. International Master Nisha Mohota, Eesha Karavade and Woman Grandmaster Swati Ghate are the other Indian ladies in the fray.

Being organized along the lines of highly successful AICF-AAI Cup held in last December at New Delhi, the AICF-KIIT cup is an extension of AICF’s initiative to promote the royal game. The major portion of the prize money in this strong tournament is being borne by AICF.

The tournament will be played on a round-robin basis and the drawing of lots will be done during the opening ceremony. There will be eleven rounds in all under FIDE’s standard time control between twelve players.

The AICF-KIIT cup is aimed at providing top level opposition to the Indian talents. The benchmark event is likely to trigger some more women’s only tournaments in the country which are currently a rarity apart from various national championships.

“We hope to create a series of such tournaments in the future to provide better opportunity to our women players, I hope the trend will be well taken in whole of Asia and we propose to hold similar tournament next year also”, said Bharat Singh Chauhan, Secretary All India Chess Federation.

Thanking KIIT to be a part of this unique event Mr. Chauhan added, “We have known KIIT for their generous tournaments held for many years now and I am really thankful to the university for supporting the game in a grand manner, I take this opportunity to invite more and more schools and University to help us make Chess a household game across the country”.

While the tournament on the whole will certainly provide a boost to Indian women chess, it will be a tough contest for the Indians in the fray. However, the likes of Mary Ann Gomes, Eesha Karavade and Nisha Mohota have played at higher level for many years and it is expected to give a tough contest to higher ranked overseas players.

The event will be covered live on the world wide web with live transmission of games.