Chennai: An eight-year-old girl stole the heart of everyone at the 44th edition of the Chess Olympiad on Friday. Randa Sedar, representing Palestine, is the youngest chess player to take part in this year's chess olympiad in India. 

She booked her place in the Palestine team bound for the chess olympiad in India by winning a silver medal in the 'National Women Championship'. Her father started teaching her chess when she was five, and it soon became her life. She dreams of meeting her idol, Hungarian chess grandmaster Judit Polgár at Chess Olympiad.

Meanwhile, Six Indian teams, including three in the women's section, kickstarted their campaigns on a brilliant note by registering comfortable victories on an opening day. 

The 16-year-old Raunak Sadhwani began the campaign for India B with a solid start in the Open section by registering a stunning win against Abdulrahman M. Later, Nihal Sarin, D Gukesh, B Adhiban also won comfortably as India B beat the United Arab Emirates by 4-0.
Indian A and India C also emerged victorious in their opening round matches of the open section. 

Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi, Narayanan SL and Sasikaran Krishnan contributed to the India A's 4-0 against Zimbabwe while SP Sethuraman, Abhijeet Gupta, Murali Karthikeyan and Abhimanyu Puranik ensured unbeaten run for the hosts in the open section and guided India C to a 4-0 win against South Sudan.