Indian chess players raise Rs.33121 in 'Let's Rebuild Odisha' fundraiser tournament
The Indian chess community came through and raised ₹33121 in just four days to contribute towards the Chief Minister's Relief fund to help rebuild Odisha after the devastation caused by the cyclone 'Fani'. India's latest GM Swayams Mishra who is a regular in ChessBase Online Blitz tournaments is also a native from Odisha. He contributed and participated in this event. Laxman made his contribution and played the tournament. India's second youngest GM R Praggnanandhaa was also among the contributors and participant. Reigning National Women's champion WGM Bhakti Kulkarni and Pune lad Aditya Samant's father made the biggest contribution of the event of ₹5000 each. Pranav Venkatesh won the tournament, just hours after finishing 2nd in National under-13 open 2019. A report by the tournament director and coordinator Shahid Ahmed.
Odisha prepared well to minimize the loss of lives. However this cyclone was the biggest in the state since 1999 Odisha Cyclone. We, at ChessBase India decided to host a fundraiser online blitz tournament on 12th of May 2019 on PlayChess. There were no entry fees, nor any prizes. All the players gave their valuable time and energy to help rebuild Odisha.
Pranav Venkatesh (Pranav_vip) truly deserved to be the champion as he defeated 3 GMs in three consecutive rounds from round 4-6. First he beat R Praggnanandhaa, then he defeated the latest GM of India, Swayams Mishra and then he went on to beat Laxman R R. It is not an easy feat considering the fact that he played the final round of National Under-13 Open on the very same day early in the morning. Pranav was the runner-up of National under-13.
Here is Pranav's best win from the tournament against Praggnanandhaa (Chessworld1):
Swayams best win was against Praggnanandhaa (Chessworld1) in round 6.
Despite losing round 4 and 5 to Swayams and Pragg respectively, Mitrabha bounced back and defeated the eventual champion Pranav Venkatesh in the last round to redeem his losses.
41 players came forward and contributed money in just 4 days. Top titled players of Indian chess like GM Laxman R R, GM Swayams Mishra, GM R Praggnanandhaa, and WGM Bhakti Kulkarni all of them contributed to the noble cause. In our opinion no amount is big or small. The fact that each one came forward and contributed already is a wonderful gesture. Thanks to the efforts of these 41 individuals, the chess community came together and raised Rs.31121 which we were able to donate to the Chief Ministers Relief Fund.
Details of the contributors
| Serial No. | Full name | Donation amount |
| 1 | WGM Bhakti Kulkarni | 5000 |
| 2 | Sachin Samant | 5000 |
| 3 | GM Laxman R R | 4000 |
| 4 | Saina Salonika | 4000 |
| 5 | GM Swayams Mishra | 3000 |
| 6 | GM Srinath Narayanan | 2000 |
| 7 | GM R Praggnanandhaa | 1000 |
| 8 | Mayur Gondhalekar | 840 |
| 9 | Aradhya Garg | 501 |
| 10 | WIM Priyanka Nutakki | 500 |
| 11 | Aditya Bikram Paul | 500 |
| 12 | Atharva Jaeel | 500 |
| 13 | A.Anand Sivasankar | 500 |
| 14 | Kiran A | 500 |
| 15 | Aniketh | 500 |
| 16 | J Kumar | 500 |
| 17 | Natarajan Rajaswaminathan | 500 |
| 18 | Mitul K H | 500 |
| 19 | Pranav V | 300 |
| 20 | Harsh Kanoje | 300 |
| 21 | LYNA | 250 |
| 22 | Sa Kannan | 230 |
| 23 | Shahil Dey | 200 |
| 24 | Amit Rajeshirke | 200 |
| 25 | Swara Lakshmi S Nair | 200 |
| 26 | FM Mitrabha Guha | 100 |
| 27 | FM C J Arvind | 100 |
| 28 | Tarun Kanyamarala | 100 |
| 29 | Bommini Mounika Akshaya | 100 |
| 30 | Trisha Kanyamarala | 100 |
| 31 | Muralikrishna | 100 |
| 32 | Rohit S | 100 |
| 33 | Samriddhaa Ghosh | 100 |
| 34 | Ambarish Sharma | 100 |
| 35 | Kotepalli Sai Nirupama | 100 |
| 36 | Varun Bhatt | 100 |
| 37 | Anurag Deo | 100 |
| 38 | Sibi Srinivas Eistein Reddy | 100 |
| 39 | Arubi Prasath G | 100 |
| 40 | Aditya Varun Gampa | 100 |
| 41 | Sagnik Nandi | 100 |
| Total | 33121 |
Pranav wins the tournament and also gets the autographed DVD of Magnus Carlsen.
Final Standings:
We thank each and every player who contributed towards this initiative with money or time. We greatly appreciate your gesture.
Feedback by the players:
Another overhelming and commendable initiative by the Chessbase India team . I convey my condolences to the bereaved families who have lost their near and dear ones in the Fani cyclone and wish them a speedy recovery to normal course of life.
- GM Laxman R R
Firstly, I appreciate your idea of organising the blitz tournament for a noble cause. I thoroughly enjoyed playing against some of the strongest players. In fact, I was fortunate to play against Swayams in the very first round, and I got a taste of how strong was India’s 62nd GM when I was crushed in under 20 moves! Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I pray for the people of Orissa and wish the state a speedy recovery.
- Kiran Anginthaya
This was my second such tournament. this time I (bought and) used a mouse. Could find a positive difference in the game-play. Feedback: I should avoid such tournaments at 11:30 pm on Sunday night in Japan ~~ I did win the first game quite nicely, but then missed a tactic in game 3, and at least one or 2 more games, and it all went downhill~~ I noticed, I was tired. to the extent that I was happy to get that 1 point off the BYE ( lol ) about the tournament: well conducted. hopefully there are more such opportunities for us, but without the underlying negative happenings... (meaning, on a normal, peaceful day, nice to have yet another tournament like this) I must improve my skills, no doubt, but I felt that the overall standard of participants in this tournament was HIGHER than the one after Pulwama incident.
- Mayur Gondhalekar
The tournament was conducted very well and once again a nice initiative by Chessbase India.I was little disappointed with the number of entries. I feel the event could be better advertised so that many number of players can take part.I was very happy to play with G.M R.R Laxman but missed a win that was pointed out by Mr Laxman himself.As I said before during the last event the tournament entry can be fixed as minimum Rs 300 as it's a fundraiser event.Thank you Chessbase India team.
- Anand Sivasankar
This was my first ChessBase Online Blitz tournament. I enjoyed playing this and I look forward to the next one.
- Samriddhaa Ghosh
