Satyajit Kundu. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Satyajit Kundu of Vivekananda Mission School is the top seed in the 20th The Telegraph Schools’ Chess Championship which begins at Gorky Sadan from Tuesday.

Current Under-12 Asian champion Girish Kaushik of Karnataka is in the fray along with Under-10 Asian champion and city boy Diptayan Ghosh.

Besides 40 rated players, former world and Asian bronze medallist in the Under-10 category, Prince Bajaj of Delhi, and former Asian bronze medallist Sayantan Das will also participate in the seven-day meet, which will be played in the 10-round Swiss League format. The meet — recognised by the Fide, AICF and WBCA — is organised by the Alekhine Chess Club. The final round will be held on September 8 followed by the prize distribution.

Around 250 boys and 60 girls from 12 states — Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Manipur, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Tripura, Uttaranchal and Bengal — will participate in the tournament that offers a total prize money of Rs 1 lakh.

Five qualifiers from Jamshedpur will also be there. Among the foreign countries, Bangladesh has six entries. Three-year old Anubhav Bal of National Gems School and five-year old Annesha Sarkar of Delhi Public School (Ruby Park) are the youngest participants in the boys and girls’ categories, respectively.

While the champion will grab a cash prize of Rs 20,000 and the winners trophy, the second and the third placed players will take home Rs 15,000 and Rs 12,000, respectively.

The meet, over the years, has produced stars like GMs Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Abhijit Kunte, Abhijit Gupta, Sandipan Chanda, Tejas Bakre and Neelotpal Das, besides WGM Nisha Mohota.