After the games and special zones, Zapak.com has now rolled out India‘s first Online Chess Grand Masters competition which kick-started on 1 February 2007.
The gaming portal is hosting ten tournament rooms for the championship, each with a capacity of 50 players. The tournament would be conducted across two rounds. Eight top players who collect the maximum points in the first round are invited for the finals to play.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, Zapak.com COO Rohit Sharma shared, “All a player has to do is to register for the Championship and the player is allocated 15 points to begin with. The player has to just get onto Zapak.com and go to the login page and register. There is no eligibility barrier, anyone of any age group or gender can participate.”
All the rounds, i.e. prelims, semi finals and finals would be conducted online. While the preliminary rounds would be played by the players wherever they can access Zapak.com but the finals would be conducted through a Mega Ground event in Mumbai.
Further adding to his statement, Sharma said, “Chess is a very popular game in the country so we are expecting a great turnout. Over 10,000 players have already participated in the tournament in the last four days. There are around 100 concurrent users in the Championship rooms at any point of time.”
“Vishwanathan Anand had once said that Chess still hasn‘t filtered down to the common man and does not attract big crowds. It was this thought that led to the origin of Multiplayer Chess on Zapak.com” he pointed out.
Preliminary rounds would be conducted between the 1st and 20th of February 2007. The finals would be conducted in the last week of February. The final day of the championship would witness four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and the mega finals.
The winner would get the title of a Zapak Grandmaster and also get a grand prize of Rs. 100,000/-