It is a fact that Chess, in its present form came into regular practice after formation of Bihar Chess Association. Even then ‘Deshi style’ addicted people were many. Incidentally, I recall here that one ‘Darbari ji’, a chess player from north Bihar, was believed to be a strong player of his time in Deshi Style of the game. The reason was, his ability to play chess ‘blind-folded’. However, now-a-days almost every chess player of state level has the ability to play, analyze games ‘blind-folded’. In short, there was no dearth of locally famous chess players in almost every part of Bihar irrespective of the fact that most of them, despite having potential, either could not perform so well in state level official championships or did not play the State championships whatever the reason may be. Probably, the new rules of chess had its detrimental effect on their performance. Ganga Prasad Suman of Saharsa at time posted at Dalmiyannagar, R K Deo, are a few names to recall of olden days.
The year 1975 came as a turning point for Bihar chess when the National B Championship and National A Chess Championships were conducted at Bihar College of Engineering and Patna College Common Room. This brought Bihar chess on the national chess map. The championship was organized under the stewardship of Dr PN Sharma, MLC and Dr K K Jamuar as BSCA President and Secretary respectively. The viewers of that time witnessed Raja Ravisekhar of Tamil Nadu who won both the National B and the National A title, The talents of Rafique Khan (MP) & DV Prasad (Karnataka), were discovered to Indian Chess, Mark W Nelson and R B Sapre (ex National Champion) were the Tournament Directors of the respective events. Chess popularity graph in Bihar probably reached the highest point. Incidentally at this point, I may mention here, although it might look surprising for many that Raja Ravisekher whose father was posted that time in Jamshedpur represented Bihar in National Junior Championship in1972 on recommendation of Bihar’s Secretary he had approached for.