Chess initiative raises Rs 4.5 lakh for Prime Minister’s relief fund

CHENNAI: An online simultaneous chess exhibition, involving some of India’s top Grandmasters raised just over Rs 4.5 lakh for the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund to fight COVID-19, on Saturday. The exhibition, which saw the likes Viswanathan Anand and P Harikrishna play 115 games against contributors, was organised by chess.com. Other established players who participated were Vidit Gujrathi, B Adhiban, Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika. The event began at 6.30 pm (Indian time) on Saturday and saw participation of players from Europe, USA and Asia
among others.

“I enjoyed playing the simul chess. The initiative was for a good cause. I am grateful to the participants and I hope they enjoyed it. We are raising money but this was also meant to be a fun day where they get a chance to play a strong Grandmaster,” said Anand.

“With over 100 games running concurrently across all simuls, a time control of 45 minutes with a 45-second increment was used across all games,” a statement put out by chess.com on their website said.
The best scoring player was Adhiban, who scored a perfect 18/18. Anand’s score was 19.5/21. Harikrishna logged 18.5/20, Gujrathi 17.5/19, Humpy 17/18 and Harika 15/19.

“It was quite intense considering that you had to play so many games at the same time without being able to see the position on the other boards. But it was a satisfying experience because of the idea behind it. In the end, we are happy to have helped raise this amount. I spoke to some of the participants and they were very happy playing against Anand and other top players. It was a win-win situation for all. If I get a chance to do something similar in the near future, I will be interested,” said Gujrathi.

Women’s World No 10 Harika also agreed that participating in the event was a fulfilling experience. “It was a much different experience than playing normal simul. Twenty different boards pop up and you have to keep track of it. So it’s more difficult than over the board simul,” she said.  “But the whole point was to interact with the fans and collect donations. So it was successful.”

Harika added that sportspersons had a responsibility to contribute in the fight against the coronavirus. “Luckily through our sport, we can do it from home. All of us are at home and we have the time to do something meaningful.”