M’luru girl Shriyana is U-8 Commonwealth Chess Champion

Shriyana Mallya, an 8-year-old chess prodigy from Mangaluru won the U-8 Girls' Commonwealth Chess Championship 2018 held at Delhi recently.

With 5 wins and 2 draws she scored 6 points to seize the title. The final round turned out very interesting, as four girls scored equal points at the end of the penultimate round. Shah Hiya of Maharastra with equal points won the silver, while Shresthi Gupta from Punjab won the bronze. Another Karnataka girl Harini secured fourth place.

The competition was held in 15 categories - including both, aged and open categories. A total of 742 participants from different parts of India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Mauritius, England, Australia, Uganda, Mozambique, Kenya and some of the Commonwealth countries, took part in the competition.

There were 40 participants in the U-8 Girls Category, and Shriyana Mallya was ranked 16th at the beginning of the championship. In the first round, she drew the match with Shah Hiya of Maharastra. In the second round, she won against Sahejdeep Kaur of Telangana. In the third round, she won against Shreshti Gupta of Punjab and in the fourth round, she won against Vidula Anbuselvan from Tamil Nadu. In the fifth round she drew her match against Devaki Nandana, the first ranked player from Andhra Pradesh, she won the sixth round against Lakshana Subramanian of Tamil Nadu. In the final seventh round, she defeated Harini, another girl from Karnataka, who had maintained the lead till the fifth round and was placed in the second place at the end of the sixth round.

On April 30, 2017, Shriyana had won the bronze medal in the world school chess championship held on Lasi, Romania. She had won another bronze in the blitz tournament held there. In April this year, she represented India in the Asian School Chess Championship held at Thailand in the U-8 age category. Her team won the bronze medal for India.

Shriyana was the national school chess champion as well as Karnataka state chess champion in the U-7 Girls' category.

Shriyana is trained by Gahan M G and Sameer Ghotane from Bengaluru.

Shriyana is the daughter of Sandeep and Nandini Mallya from Hoige Bazar, Urwa, Mangaluru and is the student of Lourdes Central School, Bejai.