February 19, 2005

Pendyala Harikrishna


Year 2000 - Wipro Corporate Press Room

Year 2001 - GM & Zinta

Year 2004 - Best Junior in the World

Year 2005 - In search of that elusive Gandhi smile

And here is one champion we cannot afford to lose.

8 comments:

Senthil Kumaran said...

Its really disheartening to see the last line.
What can be done? You have any ideas/thoughts?

Kannappan said...

Senthil

Firstly Good to see your comment on this post. Here are some of my thoughts

We can pass this information to eminent sportswriters like Arvind Aaron, Nirmal Shekar, Gulu Eziekel, Harsha Bhogle, Some journalist bloggers and get their suggestions as to what can be done.

We can prepare a report or request somebody to prepare a report and forward it to Government and Corporates.

We can ask our government to allocate extra funds to promote Chess because there is a lot of latent potential. In the words of Premji ``As a country we have natural talent in this game and all it takes is corporate or government support for players to make their mark at the international level.'' - The Hindu----

With the help of good coaches like Evgeny Vladimirov and good facilities, Hari can make it to Top 25. Anything above that will depend entirely on his own hunger and ambition.

So here is an opportunity for both the government and corporates to offer some long term help to this young champ.

If he needs some immediate assistance, We can pass the information to close cum willing friends and think of doing something personal.

I will be glad to have your suggestions.

Senthil Kumaran said...

I created a wikipedia link for Hari.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_Harikrishna
Lets expand it and try to make it popular with the community.
Kannaps,I had a problem with photo upload. if u can then try uploading it to commons.wikipedia and link it using [[image:Harikrishna.jpg]] in the site.
I also mailed my Corp Comm department, just as an effort.
Corporates should come forward. I hope someone in Google is also aware and takes some step forward.
Infy is there, yeah, this should be not be lost under anycondition .
Too poor that such a news should come!

Kannappan said...

Good that you reminded Google. This information has to be passed on to Google. Who knows they might be willing as well.

They have an International Chess GrandMaster on their rolls. Moreover I guess they are passionate about chess as it is a pure logical game. Google had recently come up with two India specific initiatives. You will have noticed both these

Google India Code JamConference GrantsBoth the above initiatives will be very helpful in the advancement of knowledge.


To present the chess sponsorship idea to the top companies, a good report has to be come up with.

Meanwhile I have started updating the Wikipedia link.

Kannappan said...

Important Update

AP Govt provides some assistance

Senthil Kumaran said...

A good question came up.
Are Chess player Rewards (even upto GM level) so less that they need support?
What is the money and how much does a player make in international tournament? ( figures any clue)
And how did Vishy manage it?
Ofcourse when Hari moves he will be economically at the same categories as Vishy is now.
Comments from players on this??

Kannappan said...

Yeah chess players' prize money is less. But at the top level there is a lot of money for the players, say for the Top 20.

Chess finds it difficult to attract sponsors as compared to other games. Thats why they charge players entry fee. This happens at all levels other than the Top level tournaments.

In the case of say Top 20 players. It is the other way around. The organisers pay a participation fee to the player. If my understanding is correct, players like Anand, Gary, Vlady all get a lot of money as a participatory fee itself apart from the winners purse. The winners purse in such tough tournaments which is open to say only 7 or 10 players has a lot of money involved in it. For example in two days time we will have a mouthwatering tournament starting at Linares, Spain. Its the Wimbledon of Chess.
Seven players participate in it. Gary, Vishy, Leko,Kasimdzhanov, et al. It will be the clash of the best of the logical brains around. You just cant express the kind of mind battles that will be fought. The cash prize for this is 1 Lakh Euro.
Source : HinduThis amount will be good enough. But you have to consider the fact that there will be only five or such tournaments in a year and you have to earn what all you want to in those few tournaments.

Hari mentions in the NDTV article that it costed him Rs.1 lakh(covers all expenses i guess) to participate in the tournament and the winners prize was just 75,000. Despite it being a tough tournament involving players ranked within top 70. Even Anand is a brand Ambassador of NIIT.

The factor is chess as a game has to be encouraged as it is more a matter of testing the boundaries of a man's knowledge. Its a healthy treat to one's brain.

Yeah I dont think there wont be as much problems if you move beyond Top 25. You will get recognised. You will start getting invitations from top tournament organisers and you will be paid for it. Even sponsors will be willing to help after that period. Until then its the responsibility of those surrounding a talented young player to see to it that his talents keep growing.

Yeah we need to collect a lot of facts. Assume this, Sportstar instead of writing some same old kind of stuff can start innovating by giving this example as a case study to some MBA graduating guys who are intrested in sport. You get an article free of cost and fresh with a passionate youth's energy. And then publish the same in the magazine. That will be Good for the magazine, Good for the reader and Good for the sport as well.

Are your questions answered?.

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