Seventeen year old Royalist Minul Doluweera was crowned National Chess Champion on Thursday, 17 August 2017 at the Royal College Skills Centre.
Doluweera ended on 9.5 points, followed by Udith Jayasundara of the University of Colombo on 8.0 points, and four other players who ended on 7.5 points in the 13-round all-play-all tournament organized by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka.
He is the fourth Royalist to win the Sri Lanka Chess Nationals after Chris Parakrama who won it in the inaugural year of 1973, followed by Muditha Hettigama, the present Royal College coach, in 1994 and Nirosh de Silva in 1999, 2001 and 2002.
Doluweera was awarded College Colours for Chess in 2015. He is the Vice Captain of the College Chess team and has been awarded the Maalyn Dias Scholarship by the college, for the most outstanding emerging player in 2014. In addition to chess, he has also excelled in other extra-curricular activities, including debating and is the Chairman of the English Debaters’ Council of the College. He also obtained 9 A’s at the GCE O/L examination in 2016.
Another outstanding achievement of Doluweera, is that he is the first Royalist to be awarded the international title ‘FIDE Master’ by the World Chess Federation, in 2016
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