India eyeing rich medal haul in Asian Games Chess

Aiming to make a big difference from 2010 Guangzhou Games, where India only achieved two bronze medals, All India Chess Federations started the preparation well in advance by selecting ten each probable to the men and women team. The team has been selected on the basis of their International Rating and Vidit Gujarathi, P Harikrishna, Nihal Sarin, S L Narayanan, K Sasikiran, B Adhiban, Karthikeyan Murali, Arjun Erigaisi, Abhijeet Gupta and Surya Shekhar Ganguly made the cut in the Men team while the women team will be selected from K Humpy, D Harika, Vaishali R, Tania Sachdev, Bhakti Kulkarni, Vantika Agrawal, Mary Ann Gomes, Soumya Swaminathan and Eesha Karavade. The selection committee consisting of Abhijit Kunte, Dibeyandu Barua and Dinesh Sharma will decide the final list of five players in the month of April.

Eyeing the four gold medals at stake in the games, legendary Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand took a different role and will mentor the team and first session with him and players will kick start next Thursday.

The chess event of the games will start on 11 September and will be played in two formats. The Individual Event of Men and Women will be played in Rapid time control from 11 September to 14 September while four Board five-member Team Event will be played under Standard time control from 16 September to 24 September.