“Check Mate Covid-19”, An Initiative by Mitan Gope


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Agartala, Jul 17, 2020, By Our Correspondent


Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the whole world has been shelled shocked and busy in battling the deadly contagion. In a bid to contain the spread of this disease, nationwide lockdown has been started from March 25.

Although some kind of activities has been started but still schools, colleges and games and sports have been stopped throughout the country.

During this lockdown period, several initiatives have been taken by several sports lovers to engage the players with the field of sports. One such initiative was taken by Chess lover and Chess player Mitan Gope who is also an employee of Tripura Board of secondary education. Being a chess lover Mitan started an online chess tournament from June 1. Interestingly the name of the tournament of “Check Mate Covid-19”.

This tournament started to hold a strong grip as the days progressed as more players is coming forward to take part in this entry free event. From June 1, this tournament has been going on daily basis at 9.00 pm while on holiday this tournament usually take place during day time. When the tournament is scheduled on day time (i.e holiday) then it is conducted as a Rapid event while at night it is a Blitz event.

About the objective of the tournament organizer Mitan Gope said that this tournament has been conducted just to keep the unity among the chess players and also to keep the value of chess among the chess players as due to Covid-19 pandemic face to face event has become impossible to conduct. Players from different parts of the country and some players from outside the country have participated till now.

Interestingly organizer chess lover and chess player Mitan Gope and his 7-year-old son Mehekdwip Gope are also taking part in the tournament. Till now the 51st edition of the tournament has been completed and the entry fee is free. In the coming days some specific age wise event to be conducted in this tournament as first the Under 7 event to be held and the date will be announced soon.

The 51st edition of the tournament was held yesterday as the event was Blitz type with 05 minutes + 2 Seconds increment. Total 56 chess players participated in this edition as among them Sundram Kumar from New Delhi secured the first position.  L Abhishek Khandelwal from Tamil Nadu, Neeraj Tamuk from Arunachal Pradesh, Monjit Taw from Assam and Mehekdwip Gope from Tripura grabbed the next four places respectively.