JANAKEEYA CHESS 2011
In Kerala chess is still not as popular as it is in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or in any other state. In recent times, FIDE rated tournaments are being hosted in our state in several districts. Surely it helps to improve the standard of our players. Yet, unfortunately it does not help to popularize chess. Normally local tournaments are conducted in cities. So naturally the participants are from city and surrounding areas only. People all over the state play chess, but they are not all participating in tournaments.
Chess Association, Thrissur gave a lot of thought to this problem. We had in fact tried conducting tournaments at different locations or centers in Thrissur, and still there was not much of an improvement. Finally, we decided to conduct a team championship such that each player who plays in the regular tournament will be forced to find other players to form teams. We decided to conduct tournament for all local bodies in our district. Corporation, Municipalities and Panchayaths were requested to send teams. There are 88 Panchayaths, 6 Municipalities and one Corporation in our district. We allowed entry to one team each from Panchayaths, 4 teams each from Municipalities and 5 teams from the Corporation. This meant that we could get a total of 123 teams. We planned to split the teams into four regions and to conduct the preliminary rounds in four different places in the district. Being the first time we expected a participation of at the most 35 to forty teams. However, we got 45 teams for the preliminary rounds. In each region we gave away cash prizes for the teams who came first second , third and fourth . We also awarded board prizes. We selected four teams from each of these regions, to play the final round at Thrissur. Thus sixteen teams qualified for the final round.
During the preliminary rounds, many elected representatives to panchayaths, corporation and even M.L.As participated in the functions. The name Janakeeya chess is well justified. The players welcomed our initiative and we have full hope that they will all start work for the next years event. We were also thrilled by the response despite the short notice and we have decided to continue this event every year. We are sure we will get good results in a couple of years.
