Sanidula Dahamdi of Musaeus College won the Crown of the Inaugural Sri Lanka Youth Girls Chess Grand Prix 2020 convincingly at the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka yesterday. In the grand finals, she scored 1 ½ points to ½ with Chanethma Marasinghe of Girls High School Kandy. In the 1st game Sanidula won with white pieces and fortunate to get an opening of center counter where she got a positive play in Queens side. She just needed a draw in the 2nd round with black pieces where she managed to get it in only 25 moves. She was awarded with Inaugural Youth Girls Grand Prix Champion title with Trophy, Medal and Rs. 20,000/= in cash. Chanethma had to satisfy with the Silver Medal and a cash award of Rs. 10,000/=.

In the semifinals, Sanidula beat Esha Pallie in the tie break Rapid Chess games 2-0 on Saturday after tying the points 1-1 in the semifinals. Chanethma beat Oneli Omaya Wilvalaarachchi 1½ - ½ to qualify for the finals. The Inaugural Sri Lanka Youth Girls Chess Grand Prix 2020 conducted by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka with a Rs. 40,000/= prize fund was started on Saturday the 29th of August 2020 with total 24 top youth Girls Chess players in under 14 category. The event is in progress till 6th of September at the CFSL Hq, Gangodawila, Nugegoda.

The event is conducted in a new format where the 24 players are divided to two groups with equal strength and two leagues are played with 11 games. Then the top two players in each group will play a knocked out event, Semifinals (A-Winner X Vs Runner up Y & B-Winner Y Vs Runner up X ) and the Consolation finals and the Finals to find the winners. Two games each as Black and white is given to each player in the knocked out stage and if there is a tie two Rapid Chess Games will be played giving 15 Minutes + 10 seconds. If still a tie Two Blitz Chess Games are given with 3 minutes + 2 seconds and still 1-1, a sudden death game is played giving extra minute to white and Black wins even the game is drawn.

Sanidula Dahamdi of Musaeus College won the Oneli Omaya Wilvalaarachchi of Gothami Balika Vidyalaya and Esha Michela Pallie of Visakha Vidyalaya won the Group X and Group Y Round Robin league Championships of the Sri Lanka National Youth Girls Chess Championships 2020. Oneli Omaya tied with Sanidula Dahamdi of Musaeus College with 10 points each and won the 1st place with better tie breaker. Esha Pallie was outstanding to win all games in her group to score 11 points out of 11 games.

Sanidula Dahamdi was leading from the beginning but lost to Oneli in the 5th round which resulted her to satisfy with the Silver Medal in Group X and Devindya Oshini Gunawardena(Furguson High School, Rathnapura) placed 3rd with 7 ½ points. Chanethma Marasinghe of Girls High School placed 2nd in the Group Y with 9 points out of possible 11 games. Chanindi Mewna Attanayake (Devi Balika Vidyalaya) after tying with Tharuli Ranganath (Yoshida International School) with 6 ½ points in third place won the Bronze Medal on the better tie breaker.

Mr Luxman Wijesuriya, the newly elected president of the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka was the chief guest while CFSL vice President, Thushan Wickramarachchi & Secretary General, Mr. Malith Akalanka gave away the awards.

Luxman Wijesuriya
President – CFSL
General Secretary – South Asian Chess Council
General Secretary –Commonwealth Chess Association
Vice President – Asian Chess Federation