The second day of the National/Women’s National Chess Championship organized by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka concluded with exciting results. The second round started at 9 a.m. today (12th September), while the third at 3.30 p.m. in both men and women categories. There was a huge enthusiasm among all the players to get themselves awarded as the national chess champion/ women’s champion. The players were paired under the round-robin method.

In the morning round, there were lots of turnarounds in both categories. In the men’s category, young master Dabarera was able to gain a full point against Fide Master L M S T De Silva who won the first round against IM Romesh Weerawardana. Also, in the women’s category, C T Koswatte who performed significantly well in National B, was able to draw the game against the current women’s national champion, WCM Sayuni Gihana. A game which took high focus was between Wijesinghe W M M N and four times national champion WIM Sachini Ranasinghe, where Wijesinghe managed to score a full point.

The third round also showed some challenging games. In the men’s category, young master Dabarera was able to gain half a point against IM Romesh Weerawardane. Meanwhile, Thanu Siva was able to draw the game against FM Anuruddha Chinthaka. Also in the women’s category, Nethmi Fernando was able to dominate the game over WIM Sachini Ranasinghe.

At the end of the day, in the open category, former national champion FM Minul Doluweera and CM Ranindu Dilshan are sharing the lead with 3 full points. Dabarera and Thanu Siva have scored 2.5 points each. In the women’s category, Nethmi Fernando is leading with 3 points while Tharuli Ranganath is half a point away with 2.5 points.