{"id":98309,"date":"2020-01-26T17:39:09","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T00:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98309"},"modified":"2020-01-26T17:39:09","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T00:39:09","slug":"chess-and-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/26\/chess-and-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Chess and I"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Senaka Weeraratna<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

“One of the things that first attracted me to\u00a0chess\u00a0is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people”\u00a0 Magnus Carlsen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina,\nand this is what that makes it different from a physical\nsport. Chess players have an unique ability of taking in a lot of\ninformation and remembering relevant bits. So, memory and mental stamina are\nthe key attributes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You bring to\u00a0chess\u00a0facets of your personality and what you are.” Viswanathan Anand<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was by chance that I found myself entering\nthe world of chess. It so happened that I had a young tutor to help me with my\nstudies in Physics and Maths, when I was in the fourth form at Royal College,\nbarely 14 years of age. The year \u2013 1963. The tutor was a student at Ananda\nCollege, four years senior to me albeit a close relative. It was my uncle Asoka\nWeeraratna, a man driven by inexhaustible energy and remarkable vision and\nforesight, who had persuaded this tutor to take me under his charge and guide\nme to clear the GCE (Ord.) level exam due the very next year (1964). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day in 1964, I came across a news item\nstating that Asoka Thenuwara had won the Ceylon Chess Championship, the\nyoungest to achieve that honour. He was 18 years of age. Asoka Thenuwara was my\ntutor. My interest in Chess started from that point in time. It was the\ntriggering factor to pursue Chess with the knowledge that I was highly privileged\nto have the Ceylon Chess Champion as my instructor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asoka Thenuwara not only gave me a\nbasic coaching but also introduced me to a group of avid Chess players meeting\nevery Saturday afternoon at a house in Wellawatte (near the railway track) belonging\nto a retired lawyer. They comprised the small circle of Chess players at that\ntime. I can recall the names of G.A.S. Dissanayake, Vijendra, Ambalavanar among\nothers. To this list must be added the names of Sali Parakrama, Anandan and\nB.R. de Silva (Accountant). They dominated the Chess scene. The other venue for\nplaying Chess was the YMCA in Fort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no proper focal point for\nChess at that time as we have today. Nevertheless, there was a Chess\nAssociation of Ceylon, which was in charge of promoting Chess in the country\nand conducting Chess Tournaments. A major landmark event in the Timeline of\nChess in Ceylon was the participation of eight or nine players from Ceylon in a\nmajor Chess tournament held in Madras in 1965. All paid for by the Indian\nsponsor. This was the first time that a team of Chess players from Ceylon had\ntaken part in a major international tournament held overseas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaffna was also a centre of Chess in\naddition to Colombo. Regular matches were conducted between the Colombo group\nand the Jaffna group. The National Chess Championship tournament was conducted\non the basis of Double Rounds between six or seven players. Each player had to\nplay against the same opponent twice and the one who gathered the most number\nof points was declared the National Chess Champion. Asoka Thenuwara beat every\nopponent twice in the two rounds, collected ten points (the maximum number of\npoints possible) to become the National Chess Champion in 1964. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asoka Thenuwara went on to win the\nFritz Kunz Prize for the most outstanding student of Ananda College (not\nconfined only to studies) in 1965. This was the equivalent (in 1965) of the\nprestigious Dornhorst Memorial Prize<\/a> for General Merit which has been awarded\nannually at Royal College, Colombo<\/a> since\n1930 in the memory of Frederick Dornhorst, K.C. In 1994, the Lalith\nAthulathmudali Memorial Award for the Most Outstanding Royalist was\ninstituted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asoka Thenuwara represented Ceylon in\nBadminton at the GANEFO Games held in Pnom Penh, Cambodia (1966). He won the\nLanka Plate for Tennis at the Junior National Tennis Championship held in\nColombo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He entered the University of Ceylon\n(Peradeniya) in 1965. Having obtained the B.Sc. in Civil Engineering in 1969 he\nproceeded to UK to obtain a degree in Mining Engineering at the Royal School of\nMines, Imperial College, University of London. Thereafter, he proceeded to read\nfor the Ph. D. in Geo \u2013 Physics at the Imperial College.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chess at Royal College <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. C.A. Hewavitarana (brother of Anagarika\nDharmapala) founded the Chess Club at Royal College at the beginning of the 20th<\/sup>\nCentury. He organized Chess tournaments in school enlisting the help of the\nCeylon Chess Club that was brought into existence by the inputs of Lewis Walker\n(Mathematics teacher at Royal College) and two other Europeans namely C.A.\nWicks (Chemistry lecturer) and J.W. Poulier ( Master of Remove B class at Royal\nCollege).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a member of the Royal College Chess\nTeam from 1965 \u2013 1967. K.K. Amaradasa (now\na lawyer known\nas Amaradasa Kodikara)\ncaptained the College Chess Team from\n1965 \u2013 1966. I was appointed Captain of the College Chess Team in 1967. \nMr. M. E. Gunaseelan (Master in Charge) and Mr. R.M.D. Wickremasinghe (Teacher\nat school) extended support to the team. Royal College played against St.\nJohn\u2019s College, Jaffna and the German Cultural Institute in 1965 and won at\nboth encounters. The school provided facilities for playing Chess during the\nlunch interval and after school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Royal College team in 1965\ncomprised the following: K.K. Amaradasa (Captain), N. Jayanthan, J.\nSatchithanandan, J. Wickremasinghe and Senaka Weeraratna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka Weeraratna  <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo – Royal College Chess Team – 1965<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source – Royal College Magazine 1965\n(Third Term)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

PS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article ‘ Chess and I ‘ was published in the Souvenir\nreleased on January 05, 2020 to mark the holding of the ’24th Battle of the\nKings’ Inter -School’ Chess Championship 2019 at Royal College, Colombo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Senaka Weeraratna “One of the things that first attracted me to\u00a0chess\u00a0is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people”\u00a0 Magnus Carlsen “Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina, and this is what that makes it different from a physical sport. Chess players have an unique ability of taking in a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}