KOLKATA: It's going to be baptism by fire for the Bhutan side at the Chess Olympiad in Chennai from July 28 to August 10 as 10 members of this small mountain country will be playing their first-ever over the board Fide-rated tournament. Established in 2004, the Bhutan Chess Federation (BCF) was functional until 2013. But after that it remained dormant for various reasons. Only last year it was revived with new members coming on board. This will be Bhutan's second appearance in the Olympiad after they played for the first time in the 2014 edition in Norway.
"We have a very young side," the men's team captain Thinley Palden Dorji told TOI during their one-day stopover in the city before flying off to Chennai. "We have a peculiar team combination with most of the players being students and engineers," he stated. The BCF selected the top five players of an open selection competition which was held in Thimphu on May 21-22. With no tournaments or coaches available in the country, all the unrated Bhutanese have been self-taught players.
