Utsav Khandelwal – Champion of the Week

After the rigorous training that our students undergo throughout the week, our weekly tournaments give them a great opportunity to display their knowledge practically. Hence, we at Chess KLUB bring to you the results of our weekly tournaments and some brilliant games. 

In this week’s Open Tournament we had 93 students play against each other across 9 rounds with Utsav Khandelwal as the champion with an incredible score of 8 out of 9.

Utsav played a remarkable game against our runner up Vivaan Bhatt in the final round. Utsav posed a pawn fork to Vivaan’s knight and bishop, but Vivaan escaped that pawn fork by giving a check and winning a rook. The two opponents then continued the game, and each won a few pawns. On the 21st move,

Vivaan made a queen blunder making Utsav a queen up, giving him a massive advantage. This massive blunder forced Vivaan to resign, making Utsav the winner of this game. Although Vivaan lost this game, Vivaan completed the tournament with a wonderful score of 7 out of 9.

In third place, we had Jethin Bastin with a score of 7 out of 9 as well. 

In the Beginner Tournament held on Sunday, our winner was Yajat Biyani with an amazing score of 7.5 out of 9.

Yajat played an interesting game against our runner up Aariv Upadhyay who had a great score of 7 out of 9. Yajat became a rook up in the opening, giving him a good advantage at the beginning of the match itself. The two traded their queens soon, and Yajat won another rook soon after. A loss of two rooks caused Aariv a major set back that forced him to resign on the 14th move.

Sean Siculiano, our second runner up had a score of 7 out 0f 9 as well but secured the third position through the tiebreaker. 

In the Intermediate Tournament, we had a marvellous performance of 56 students who competed against each other across 9 rounds.

We had Kinjal Chatterjee as our champion who secured a perfect score of 9 out of 9 points. Kinjal and Vivaan Bhatt played a splendid game against each other. Kinjal opened the game with the Queen pawn, and the game continued to be significantly equal through the opening and middle game. Kinjal captured a poison pawn using his bishop on the 23rd move causing him to lose that bishop. On the 26th move, Vivaan made a rook blunder giving Knjal an overall advantage. On the 36th move, Vivaan blundered his bishop as well. This forced Vivaan to resign immediately.

Vivaan concluded this event with a score of 7.7 out of 9 followed by Adhvik Manoj with a score of 6 out of 9. 

In the final event of the weekend, we had Advit Gupta as the champion of the Advanced Tournament with an excellent score of 7 out of 8.

Joshith Vurimi secured the second position and played an engaging game against our winner. Advit opened with the Two Knights Defence, and the game continued to be equal till the middle game where the two players exchanged their queens. Advit became a pawn up in the end game and created a passed pawn. Advit made a queen on the 33rd move giving Advit a huge advantage. Finally, on the 66th move, Advit checkmated Joshith on the 66th move.

Joshith had a score of 6. 5 at the end of this event followed by Archit Singh in third place with a score of 5 out of 8.  

In the second round of tournaments, we had the Beginner Battle Arena with Eshan Kadri as our champion with a spectacular win rate of 83%.

In the second position, we had Yajat Biyani with a score of 67%, followed by Aariv Upadhyay with a score of 32%. Eshan played an attacking game against Aariv. Both Eshan and Aariv brought their queens out very early into the game. Eshan posed an attack on Aariv’s queen. Aariv’s queen was positioned on a square- preventing a probable checkmate. Aariv missed this checkmated and moved his queen costing him the game. 

In the Intermediate Battle held on Wednesday, we had Ishan Ghate display a splendid performance with a perfect win rate of 100%.

In his second-last round, Ishan defeated our runner up, Rishab Ghosh, using exceptional skills. Ishan opened the game with the Queen pawn opening and sacrificed his bishop in the opening to open his rook on the ‘h’ file to attack Rishab’s queen. Rishab’s queen was then exposed and open to attacks. Rishab missed one such attack and felt for a checkmate in one.

Rishab completed this event with a grand win rate of 85% followed by Kinjal Chatterjee in third place with a remarkable win rate of  80%. 

Saket Reddy was this week’s Advanced Battle Champion, held on Wednesday, with a marvellous win rate of 67%.

Saket played an aggressive game against our runer up Sanjey Ramachandran. Sanjey had a win rate of 50% at the end of this tournament. Saket played his favourite opening, the Italian Game opening – the classical variation. The game continued to be equal till the two exchanged their queens in the middle game. On the 24th move, Sanjey missed a knight fork attacking his rooks. This cost Sanjey a rook in the end game, forcing him to resign.

Our second runner up for this event was Adithiyaa Vasudevan with a win rate of 50%. 

This spectacular week saw some exceptional performances with some fresh names on our winner list, and we hope for similar results in the following weeks as well. 

Congratulations to all the winners!