The Chess Federation is celebrating it’s Golden Jubilee this year. The CFSL was formed as the famous World Chess Championship match between Russian Grand master and reigning World Chess Champions Borris Spasskey and energetic American Grand Master Boby Fischer in 1972. Being the two countries were great rivals at the time and Russia dominating the Chess World, American, Fischer’s winning of the World Chess Championship became a golden history in World Chess.

In result of this incident, the local enthusiasts of Chess got together and formed the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka on 3rd September 1972 under the presidency of Mr. VP Vittachchi. After few years Mr. Bodinagoda who was the Chairman of the Lake House became President and some progressive activates happened at the time. There were some ups and downs between 1988 – 1999 due to political unstability in the country and security level. The current era began in 1999 under the presidency of Mr. Derrick Perera where two huge events, the Asian Junior Chess Championships were held in 2000 and 2001 in a grand style. Derrick was appointed as the General Secretary of Asian Chess Federation in 2002.

The 1st National Chess Champion is Christopher Parakrama of Royal College and Sri Lanka started to play the FIDE Chess Olympiad 1st time in 1978 at Buanosaires, Argentina. A team led by Arjuna Parakrama with Harsha Aturupane, L.C. Goonatilleke and Sunil Weeramantry were the team. After a non regular participations in 1982 to 1996 the CFSL started their regular participation of Chess Olympiads from 2000, Turkey. After the year 2000 we were regular members in all Chess Olympiads happened in Slovenia 2002, Spain 2004, Italy 2006, Germany 2008, Russia 2010, Turkey 2012, Norway 2014, Azerbaijan 2016 and Georgia 2018. But, Suneetha Wijesuriya brought honour to the country at the FIDE Chess Olympiad 1992 in Manila by winning a Board prize Gold Medal.

The current development came with Mr. Luxman Wijesuriya came to the authority. He started a strong Internal structure of events with cash payments for the events. Made the knowledge among players on ratings and titles, started organizing official Asian events regularly. This resulted in developing the game rapidly and Sachini Ranasinghe became the winner of Asian Zonal Women’s Chess Championship 2011 and became the 1st Women International Master in the country. She got qualified for the FIDE Women Chess World Cup in 2012 and became the first player to play in the event.

Then Romesh Weerawardena performed well in the Asian Zone 2013 to win the 1st International Master title. Nelunika Methmani also got the Women International Master this year. Then Harshana Thilakaratne was the one who cam to the highest level when he got the IM title in regular system with 3 IM norms and 2400 rating. Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage was fortunate be the 1st player played in FIDE Chess World Cup 2021 in Russia.

Chess Federation has become the one of the most active Federations in Sri Lanka as well as one of the most active Chess Federations in Asia. Even with the pandemic situation the CFSL was having 100 odd Online events and possible over the board event. Golden Jubilee has come in the right time with the right person, Mr. Luxman Wijesuriya who is even the Genera Secretary of South Asian Chess Council and Commonwealth Chess Association and a Vice President of Asian Chess Federation is leading the CFSL.

Be a part of this memorable year!