The opening round of the championship: a full hall, parents along the walls, and a chief guest who came down from the stage to meet the youngest players. The youngest champion of the day was five.
By mid-morning on 13 June, the hall at the Senior Staff Club in Jabalpur was full. Boards ran in long rows across the floor, each with a clock beside it, and behind the players sat parents, grandparents and younger siblings, watching a game they were not allowed to help with. Jabalpur was where our season began.
Before the first round: players at their boards, families behind them.
This was the Jabalpur round of the Prime Engage Jr. Chess Championship, which moves from city to city so that a child can play a proper tournament without leaving home. Players were split into four age categories, Under 8, Under 10, Under 12 and Under 16, so a five-year-old was never paired against a teenager. The winner of each category in a city goes through to the zonal round.
Our chief guest was IM Akshat Khamparia. After the formal welcome, with shawls for the guests on stage, he came down from the stage to meet the children. The giant demonstration board at the side of the hall drew the youngest players, and he was happy to stand beside them for photographs.
IM Akshat Khamparia with one of the youngest players, beside the demonstration board.
The youngest title of the day went to Master Mahir Sahu, who is five. Under 8 means under eight, so he was playing children up to two years older, and he did it over six rounds. Master Hitansh Parwani finished second. Portronics, our gadget partner, named Master Mahir its Rising Star Champion for Jabalpur.
In the other categories, Master Samriddh Khare won Under 10 with Master Parth Singh second. Master Jimit Saini won Under 12, with Master Kabeer Gupta as runner-up, and in Under 16 the champion was Master Viraj Vishwakarma, with Master Shauryansh Singh Katharria runner-up.
The prize distribution came at the end. Prize money of ₹29,000 for the city was shared among the top five players in each category, and all five received trophies, with the smallest winners holding theirs with both hands. Every child who played received a medal and a digital certificate. Radio City 91.1 FM was our radio partner, Portronics our gadget partner, and the Senior Staff Club was good enough to host the whole day as our venue partner.
A runner-up receives his trophy.
The category winners from Jabalpur now have the Central zonal in Indore to look forward to later this season.
More city reports from this season: Kochi, Delhi, Kolkata, Nagpur, Pune, Mumbai, Gwalior, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kolhapur, Mysuru.
Photos and updates from every city are shared on Instagram at @chess_with_primeengage.
- prime engage junior chess championship
- jabalpur
