HOST: Maharashtra Chess Association.

DESCRIPTION:
*     A total of 250 players from 65 countries, including 30 which have confirmed their entries till date.
*      Five-time world champion Vishwanathan Anand is the event`s brand ambassador.
*      Anand won the world junior title as the first major crown in his illustrious career nearly three dacades ago in the Philippines.
*      There will be a open category for players with ELO rating of 2000 and above and a girls category for those with a rating of 1800.
*      Former world junior title winners include Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Kasparov and Vishwanathan Anand.
*     Other Indian winners of the world junior title in the past are P Harikrishna, Abhijeet Gupta, Koneru Humpy, Dronavalli Harika and Soumya Swaminathan.
*     The winner of the title in the 13-round Swiss League event would be richer by Rs 6 lakh.
*     The highest-rated player in the open category - which will see 51 participants including 13 GMs - is Wei Yi of China and Robin Van Kampen of The Netherlands - both with an identical rating of 2638 - while the lowest is New Zelander Raivath Mallela and the average ELO rating is 2300.
*     There would be ten Indians in the fray.
*     Among the 37-srong girls` field is one woman GM.
*     Alexandra Goryachkina of Russia (rating 2430) heads the field which has three Indian participants.

ODISHA PLAYERS IN THE FRAY:
BOYS: Sidhant Mohapatra (2255), Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (2213), Mohammad Ashraf (2117), Rakesh Kumar Jena (2074),  Rakesh Kumar Nayak (2057), Ashirwad Swain (2050).
GIRLS: Padmini Rout (2354), Sunyasakta Satpathy (1820), Rutumbara Bidhar, Saina Saloinika.