9th N L Pandiyar Memorial Rating Open offers 16.1 Lacs prize fund, starts in less than three weeks

By admin October 7, 2026 0 comments

9th N L Pandiyar Memorial Rating Open will take place from 25th to 29th October 2026. The total prize fund ₹1601000 will be up for grabs.

This October, play a rating tournament in Udaipur, Rajasthan

This is one of the longest running Open Rating tournaments in the state. The first edition took place back in 2009. This edition offers a prize fund of ₹1601000, an increase of ₹100000 from the previous edition in 2022. Total number of prizes are 113 cash + 122 trophies. There are three prizes worth ₹1 lac and more. Apart from that, there are four prizes worth ₹50000 or more. So far 462 players have registered from various parts of the country, one from Canada and Germany each. Hurry up and register if you have not already.

Championship history

The tournament is being organized in Udaipur, Rajasthan since 2009. The winner of the first edition, IM Sriram Jha went on to become a Grandmaster in the following year. Vignesh N R won the third edition when he was just 13-years-old. He became an International Master in 2015. Only the second and third edition were rating restricted events. From 2016 onwards, it once again became an Open tournament. Fourth to sixth edition took place consecutively between 2016 and 2018.

Winner of 1st N L Pandiyar Memorial Open – IM Sriram Jha 9/11 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

Winner of 2nd N L Pandiyar Memorial Below 2200 – Nirav Y Rajasuba 8.5/10 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

Winner of 3rd N L Pandiyar Memorial Below 2300 – Vignesh N R 8.5/10 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

Winner of 4th N L Pandiyar Memorial Open – IM Akshat Khamparia 8.5/10 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

Winner of 5th N L Pandiyar Memorial Open – Pranav Shetty 8/9 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

Winner of 6th N L Pandiyar Memorial Open – IM Ramnathan Balasubramanian 7.5/8 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

IA NI Vikas Sahu giving a memento to GM Vidit Gujrathi, Chief Guest of the 6th N L Pandiyar Memorial Rating Open 2018 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

GM Deepan Chakkravarthy won the 1st Lakecity GM Open 2019 | Photo: Chess in Lakecity

Kartavya Anadkat won 7th N L Pandiyar Memorial Rating Open 2022 | Photo: IA NI Vikas Sahu / Chess in Lakecity

Arvinder Preet Singh won 8th N L Pandiyar Memorial Rating Open 2023 | Photo: IA NI Vikas Sahu / Chess in Lakecity

Who will win the ninth edition? | Photo: Tournament Circular

Schedule

Every day there is double round from 25th to 28th October 2026, except last day 29th October. The last round on 29th October 2026 is a single round.

Tournament schedule | Source: Tournament circular

Prizes

The tournament has a total prize fund of ₹1601000. The total number of prizes are 190. There are three prizes worth ₹1 lac and more. Apart from that there are four more prizes worth ₹50000 or more. Two different rating categories have a combined total of 40 prizes which is besides the 30 main prizes. That’s not all, there are ten prizes each for Unrated and Best Udaipur players. Best Women, Best Veteran (Above 55 years) and Best Physically Challenged have five prizes each. Eight age group categories, starting from Under-7 to Under-14 have ten prizes for top ten in each category.