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The Maharashtra Chess League is scheduled to be held from June 11 -15 at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana, Pune (Western India) for the second year in succession. It will be a six team, six players a side rapid tournament, where the teams play a round-robin with each other in the first three days. The top four proceed to the semi-finals on the penultimate day and the winners go to the finals on the last day.
This is the first and only professional chess league of the country, and the event sponsorship comes from Johnson Tiles and Amanora Knowledge Foundation and UFO Digital Cinema. The hospitality partner is Hyatt Pune and venue partner is PYC Hindu Gymkhana, Pune.
Cricket being the most dominant sport of India, the teams have been named synonymous with the well known Cricket Indian Premier League (IPL). The six teams have been thus colourfully named after the cities of Maharashtra from which the sponsoring corporates hail from: Pune Attackers (Owned by Goel Ganga Group), Jalgaon Battlers (Jain Irrigation Systems Pvt. Ltd.), Thane Combatants (MEP Infrastructures), Ahmednagar Checkers (RBS Sportethics), Mumbai Movers (South Mumbai Chess Association) and new-entrants Pune Tru Masters (Tru Space). For example, the top two teams who have reached the finals of the IPL are Kings’ XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders.
Novelty and grandiose being the norm of the event, the organisers managed to invite the former World Champion Vishy Anand (above) for the Players’ Auction on 30th May, just like last year. True to his usual self, Vishy charmed the city of Pune…
Enjoying a Q&A session, with the President of the MCL Aniruddha Deshpande (left)
The main forces behind the event: GM Abhijit Kunte, Ravindra Dongre and Dilip Pagay.
The strange and unusual fact is that all these administrators happen to be present and
past chess players – not what you would expect in a group of administrators.
A group photo for the record – with all the team owners...
... and one with the youngsters
Even the for the obligatory selfie…
The MCL follows a set of rules for team compositions and auction, which are influenced by the tournament regulations. In a gist:
Lalith Babu was the only GM to be retained by his previous
team, Pune Attackers, the winners of in 2013
All such rules lead to lots of thinking and strategies behind the bidding process. Just a few examples:
Thus, the chaotic auction took place in a tense atmosphere on the 30th May, with team owners sitting with the team coaches to help them with the biddings. There were totally 63 players who went under the hammer…
IM DV Prasad, who was the winning team captain last year, with clever distribution
of colours to his players, helping out the team owners
IWM Mrunalini Kunte – GM Abhijit sister – for Ahmednagar Checkers
Brothers Chandrasekhar (second from left) and Jayant Gokhale (extreme right) for the Thane Combatants
Finally, the teams selected were:
Scroll down to see all teams
Grandmasters - Abhijit Kunte (Ahmednagar Checkers) and Vidit Gujrathi (Jalgaon Battlers) Rs. 120,000 each – they jointly broke the record Rs. 115,000 paid out to GM Surya Ganguly as the highest priced player from last year.
Baskaran Adhiban and Vidit Gujrath:– two 2600+ for Jalgaon Battlers
WGM Eesha Karavade (Mumbai Movers): Rs. 85,000.
Woman player - Rucha Pujari (Jalgaon Battlers): Rs.27,000.
The venue of last year’s Maharashtra Chess League
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