Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Jul 4: Shriyana Mallya, 8-year-old chess prodigy from Mangaluru, has won the ‘Commonwealth Chess Championship 2018’ title in under 8 girls' category being held at the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel, Delhi from June 25 to July 3.
With 5 wins and 2 draws, Mallya scored 6 points to clinch the title which was thrilling towards the end as 4 girls had scored equal points at the end of the penultimate round. Shah Hiya of Maharashtra with equal points won the silver, while Shresthi Gupta from Punjab won the bronze. Another Karnataka girl Sri Harini secured fourth place.
Competition was held in 15 categories - including both age and open categories. There were altogether 742 participants. Most of the participants were from different states of India. Besides there were participants from Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Mauritius, England, Australia, Uganda, Mozambique, Kenya and some of the commonwealth countries.
In the under 8 girls' category there were 40 participants and Shriyana Mallya was ranked 16th at the beginning of the championship. In the first round, she drew the match with Shah Hiya of Maharashtra. In the second round she won against Sahejdeep Kaur of Telangana. She won against Shreshti Gupta of Punjab in the third round and in the fourth round she won against her opponent from Tamil Nadu Vidula Anbuselvan. While in the fifth round she drew her match against Devaki Nandana, the first ranked player from Andhra Pradesh. She won the sixth round against Lakshana Subramanian of Tamil Nadu.
In the final seventh round she defeated Karnataka’s Sri Harini, who had maintained the lead till the fifth round and was placed in the second place at the end of sixth round.
On April 30, 2017 Shriyana had won the bronze medal in the world school chess championship held in Lasi, Romania. She had won another bronze in the blitz tournament held there. In April this year, she represented India in the Asian school chess championship held in Thailand in the under 8 age category. Her team won the bronze medal for India.
Shriyana was the national school chess champion as well as Karnataka state chess champion in the under-7 girls' age category. She won these titles on January 7 in Nagpur and on April 4, 2017 in Bengaluru. Recently she had won the Karnataka State under 11 girls' chess championship - 2018 held in Kundapur.
Shriyana was coached by Gahan M G and Sameer Ghotane from Chess SaGa, Bengaluru.
Shriyana is the daughter of Sandeep and Nandini Mallya from Hoigebail, Urwa, Mangaluru and is the student of Lourdes Central School, Bejai.