The All Jharkhand Chess Association is organising an online chess festival in the state for the U-18, 16, 14, 12 and 10 age groups in both boys and girls categories to select players for upcoming national tournaments.

The under-18 event has already started while the one for the under-16 age group kicked-off on Saturday evening.

"The matches are played on digital platform Li-Chess under Swiss Rapid rules of FIDE which is going to be used in the forthcoming Nationals and World Championships for 2021," said AJCA secretary Neeraj Kumar Mishra, an International Master.

According to him, the under-14 event is scheduled on June 7 and will be followed by the one meant for the under-12 age section on June 9. The chess festival will conclude with the event for the under-10 age group on June 11.

Matches for all age groups will be for two days.

Chess enthusiasts from East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Ranchi, Bokaro and Dhanbad are participating in the chess festival.

Players who participated in the under-18 event include Adhiraj Mitra, Souryadipta Sarkar, Rishav Kumar, Kriti Kumari, Saara Jain,Navieka Jaiswal, Sunidhi Singh, Dishita Dey and Dyuti Chakraborty (all from East Singhbhum), Ishant Kumar, Harshvi Matalia (both from Dhanbad), Shaswata Paul (West Singhbhum), Kadambini Ghadai (Bokaro).

The online national championship for the under 18 age group will be starting on June 10 and will be subsequently followed in quick intervals by the ones meant for other groups.

The All India Chess Federation has made it mandatory for all players to get registered with it to play any official events including district championships. The district and state associations cannot charge any annual registration.

The state outfit has been conducting events virtually to keep the players engaged during the pandemic. This way they can remain in touch with the game and will not face issues when offline tournaments start getting organised once the situation improves.