Chess Wiz Tanraj Sohal Wins Major BC And Washington Tournaments

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SURRERY – Chess wizard Tanraj Sohal, 19 year-old Simon Fraser University student from Surrey, won the Washington Open Chess Championship held at the Lynnwood Convention Center, Seattle over the US Memorial Day weekend May 28-30. Almost 210 players from the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and BC) attended the tournament. Tanraj was the co-winner in the strong open section.

Tanraj Sohal also won the 41st Paul Keres Memorial Open Chess Championship held at the Guru Angad Dev School in Surrey over the Victoria Day weekend May 21-23, 2016. This is a prestigious annual chess tournament organized by the BC Chess Federation.

Tanraj recently got his Fide Master (FM) title from the World Chess Federation (FIDE) by establishing a FIDE rating of more than 2300 at the BC Open Chess Championship held in Richmond on February 6-8, 2016 where he was the co-winner.

Tanraj could not play in the Keres Memorial tournament for 12 years as he represented BC at the Canadian Chess Challenge which also happened to be on the same weekend.

Tanraj started playing chess when he was in Grade 1. He has represented BC at the Canadian Chess Challenge held across Canada from 2003 to 2014, a record 12 years in a row from Grade 1 to 12. He has won the Canadian Chess Challenge (National Championship) 9 times, setting a record for the highest number of national championships won by any player in the history of the tournament.