SL National Chess Champion Ranindu Dilshan Liyanage of Ananda College fought hard Grand Master Enamul Hussain and got a draw in style to win the Bronze Medal in the Asian Zonal Hybrid Chess Championship 2021 of Zone 3.2 of FIDE, the South Asian Zone. Starting with the Sicilian Defense the grandmaster sacrificed a pawn and got a strong night against Ranindu’s bad Bishop early in the game. He used all tricks to get the points since if he got the point he could have got the gold medal with the possibility to play in the Chess World Cup 2021. But, with very careful play Ranindu achieved the 3rd spot with a total of 6 points out of 9 games.

Overnight leader Bangladesh Grandmaster Ziaur Rahman(2434) also drew a hard fought game against Bangladeshi, young, 11 year old, Manon Reja Neer and stopped at 8 points. Needing a full point to tie with him with the better tie breaker, Bangladeshi Grandmaster had to draw the game on Ranindu and won the Silver Medal with 7 ½ ponts. So, the Grandmaster Ziaur got the Gold Medal with the FIDE Chess World Cup ticket. A total of 3,000 USD is distributed among the winners with USD 1,000 to the Champion, USD 700 to the runner up and USD 500 to Ranindu being the 3rd.

Unfortunately, FIDE Master Susal De Silva of Nalanda College met his colleague AACB Amarasinghe of SJP Chess Club and game ended in favour of Amarasinghe. Amarasinghe scored 6 points out of 9 games and tied for the 3rd place with 5 more players, but placed 8th according to the tie breaker point. Susal had a total of 5 points out of 9 game. Amarasinghe also received 100 USD as the award for 8th place.

The Asian Zonal Chess Championship 2021, the preliminary event for the FIDE World Chess Cup 2021 for the South Asia was started on 1st of June 2021 on the Tornelo platform. A total of 39 players from the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka participated in the event. With the strength, India is considered as a single zone by FIDE giving a direct entry to the FIDE World cup.

The Bangladesh Chess Federation conducted the event from Dhaka and the Sri Lankan Players played from the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka headquarters, Gangodawila, Nugegoda. The event was in progress from 1st to 9th June 2021. It was held according to the Swiss System of 9 rounds. The Virtual Awards Ceremony is planned to be held on 10th June 2021 at 3.00 p.m SL Time.