Patna girl Ankita excels at California State Scholastic Chess

Patna, May 8, 2009
Patna girl Ankita Roy a 10th grader from Irvington high School, Fremont, California won 4th place in the California State scholastic ( 9-12 Junior varsity) chess championship held in San Jose from May 2 to 3.

According to information reached here, the championship held at San Jose convention center drew 833 scholastic players from all over California. Ankita top seeded in her group won four and drew one game defeating players from various parts of California.

Top 25 players were awarded trophies by California States Chess Association.

Ankita had several titles under her belt including the California State Championship (K-3 division) two years in a row. This was a record in itself since no girl had ever won this and no player had won this twice.

Ankita born in United States, spent her early childhood in Bhagalpur with her grandparents and joined her parents in US at age four. Almost every year she loves to visit India and especially Patna, her father’s paternal house. Besides chess Ankita won debate competitions representing her school and is a honor roll student. In her studies, Ankita is one of the top students in class and aspires to become doctor to serve the society.

Ankita's father Sujay Roy based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California was a chess champion during his own time in India representing Bihar State at national championships. Sujay Roy is from Patna and after finishing engineering degree from Bihar College of Engineering, Patna joined ONGC. During his student years Sujay was captain of Patna university chess team and under his captainship Patna University won second place in All India Inter University Chess championship held at Hyderabad.

Sujay was Captain of ONGC team that won several championships in All India petroleum tournaments. Sujay is working as research and development Senior Staff Engineer in a fortune 500 company in California. He is also Secretary of California based non profit American Organization for Development of Bihar which helps Bihar through several projects like children education and health camps. Recently Sujay Roy as chief Coordinator of Bihar Flood relief committee in USA raised over $60000 for flood victims in Bihar. The fund was donated to Punarwaas, R.K.Misson and several other smaller projects like school building, blankets, clothes distribution in flood affected area.