Tsunami Relief Match On ICC
Harikrishna Wins 7-3
Prathiba, Ushenina Win

By Arvind Aaron in Chennai

The Internet Chess Club had a Tsunami Relief Match raising awareness for its members to contribute through a simultaneous exhibition match. World Junior champion Pentyala Harikrishna played 10 Woman Masters from across the globe and in the end won six, drew two and lost two for a 7-3 score on Jan 22, 2005.

The Internet Chess Club is the largest meeting ground for chess players in the world and this time the Fifth Saturday event was advanced to a fourth Saturday start at 1300 GMT. Of the spectators, notable were WGM Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman who is to get married later this week and also Harikrishna's sparring partner IM Sundararajan Kidambi.

Three players played from Chennai and it included former Sri Lankan women's champion Suneetha Wijesuriya. IWM Prathiba Yuvaraj shocked Harikrishna while P.Priya lost quite easily. Harikrishna played from Hyderabad using his normal ICC handle "TomCruise". Harikrishna was given white in all ten games and 150 minutes and the opponents had 120 minutes for a classical time control.

"More than 40,000 people died in our country," said Wijesuriya of Sri Lanka who has brought 55 players and parents for the Solar Chess Tournament in Chennai over the Jan 22-23 weekend. "Two young chess players from Galle were among the Tsunami victims," she said. It was her first online chess game and she preferred to play with a regular board by the side of the computer monitor.

Suneetha Wijesuriya pondering over her next move. Pic: Arvind Aaron.

For those not familiar with Internet Chess Club, you can download Blitzin at www.chessclub.com/download and play with an annual fee of USD49 per year. It is free for GMs, IMs, WGMs, IMs and you get a rating. Links for www.worldvision.org and www.worldvisionindia.org were given for vistors to donate liberally for the cause of the Tsunami survivors.

The score for Harikrishna:
IWM Y.Prathiba (Ind): Lost
P.Priya (Ind): Won
Suneetha Wijesuriya (Sri): Won
WGM Martha Fierro (Ecu): Won
WFM Meri Lyell (Eng): Won
WGM Anna Ushenina (Ukr): Lost
IWM Ekaterina Ubiennykh (Rus): Draw
IWM Evgenia Hansen (Den): Draw
WGM Lenka Ptacnikova (Ice): Won
WGM Margarita Voiska (Cz): Won

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