Dimuth Indeepa Samarweera of DS Senanayake College made the Chess history by winning the Inaugural Sri Lanka Youth Chess Grandprix yesterday at the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka Headquarters, Nugegoda. Dimuth who was performing extremely well from the 1st round has no hesitation in beating his schoolmate, Senuka Ahangama 1 ½ - ½ at the super finals held yesterday. He drew his first game and won the 2nd game convincingly. He was awarded the Championship Trophy, Gold Medal and a cash award of Rs. 25,000/=. Dimuth beat one of his schoolmates, Pesandu Liyanage in the Semi Finals on Monday.

Senuka Ahangama also from DS Senanayake College had to satisfy with the 2nd place getting the Silver Medal with Rs. 15,000/= cash award. Senuka became the group Championship in Group X earlier and came to the final after a strong battle with Shenal Gunathilake of Royal College in the Semifinals.
Peasndu Liyanage over came with Vinuda Shenal Gunathilake in the consolation finals and placed third with the Bronze Medal and Rs. 10,000/= in cash. The match they played was 1 each and Pesandu beat Vinuda on the first tie breaker, the Rapid Games. Peasandu beat Vinuda in both Rapid Games. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd, all three places went to DS Senanayake College Colombo.

A total of 20 top under 14 years Chess players participated in this strongest youth Chess Championship conducted by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka for the first time in the Chess history. The event is scheduled in a new format as 20 players are divided in to two groups with equal strength. So two, ten player round robin (9 rounds) events were played on 8th, 9th, 15th and 16th of August 2020. Then the Champion and the runner up in the groups played a knocked out as X winner Vs Y Runner Up, Y winner with X runner up as semifinals and then the finals between the winners.

The knocked out stage, each match had two games with different colours and tie breaks was two games with rapid play in two colours followed by two blitz games and if still tied, a sudden death game. The whole tournament games were live webcasted.

Mr. Luxman Wijesuriya, the expected President of CFSL who is the General Secretary of South Asian Chess Council and a Vice President of Asian Chess Federation was the Chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony with the Chief Arbiter Dayal Siriwardena and Mr. Erosh Jayasinghe, the Treasurer of CFSL.