Saturday marks the beginning of the battles of the week, and this beginning is marked with our biggest event, the Chess KLUB Open Tournament.

This week we saw the participation of 106 students over the course of three hours. The champion of this massive event was Druheen Das with an excellent win rate of 94%. His most engaging game was against Devansh Pamecha. The game started with Devansh opening with the aggressive Sicilian Defense and he tried to branch out into a variation of the dragon.

Unfortunately, Devansh did not stop the attack Druheen was planning on his kingside in time to defend his king well enough. This led to a loss of material followed by a loss of the game for Devansh.

In the second position, we had Dron Acharya Das with a win rate of 89% followed by Chari Govind in third place with an immaculate win rate of 100%.

Sundays are packed with great battles held one after the other with some impressive games to watch. This eventful afternoon begins with the Beginner Battle Arena where we had Harshith Nelabhotla as our master among our budding masters with an admirable win rate of 86%.

His most interesting game was against our runner up Ayush Sarraf. This was an extremely aggressive game which saw some back to back captures of each other’s pieces in the opening where, unfortunately, Ayush ended this exchange with a minor piece lesser than Harshith.

This was then followed by a consecutive attack on each other’s rook which drove Ayush’s King out of protection and eventually was trapped at the edge of the board, leading Harshith to victory. Ayush ended this event with a great win rate of 76% followed by Adhrit Naskar with a win rate of 61%.

The second event for this jam-packed day is the Chess KLUB Intermediate battle where we saw 49 of our hard-working players battle the afternoon against each other.

The first seed for the day was Jun Ichikawa with a win rate of 77%. The most spectacular game of the afternoon was between Jun and our runner up Aarav Patel. The two exchanged their queens very early in the game which was followed by a reasonably equal middle game. Towards the end, Aarav blundered his rook, while trying to attempt a back rank checkmate. This led to Jun winning the game after 25 moves.

Aarav completed the tournament with an incredible win rate of 79% followed by Jay Mahendran in third place with a win rate of 74%.

Our masters are next in line with the Advanced Battle Arena where we had Aman Sreshta as our winner with an excellent win rate of 80%.

My favourite game from this event was between Aman and Rishi Bhaumik. This game started with the Sicilian defence played by Aman, after which the main action of the game moved to the centre of the board where we saw an exchange of pawns and minor pieces.

Unfortunately, in this exchange, Rishi blundered a minor piece. Aman did not fail to seize this opportunity to take advantage of this position. Eventually, Aman converted this advantage into a victory.

In the third place, we had Rudra Mishra with a win rate of 67% through the twelve games he played.

On Wednesdays, we have another round of our battle arena tournaments starting with our budding champions, the Beginner Battle Arena.

Ayush Sarraf won our hearts and this tournament with a win rate of 100% over the 11 games he played. His most engaging game was his first game against our second runner up Johan Chavara who had a brilliant win rate of 67%. Both the opponents made some blunders in the opening and middle game but the game got really interesting when Ayush opened up his opponent’s king and after a couple of moves, and great use of his tactical skills, he managed to win the match.

In the second place, we have Vivan Sarraf with an excellent win rate of 82%.

The next event for the day was the Intermediate Battle Arena Tournament where we had Paarth Chowdhury as our champion with an incredible win rate of 77%.

He played a lot of interesting games but the game that caught everyone’s attention was his game against yoshib that lasted 39 brilliant moves. Both players displayed the use of incredible tactics like forks, pins, and discovered attacks. Both players also blundered their queens but eventually, Paarth was an exchange up and went on to win the game.

Soham Dhavalikar was our runner up with a great win rate of 80%. Kinjal Chatterjee, in third place, had a win rate of 75%.

The final event of the week is the Chess KLUB Advanced Battle where our experienced students battle against each other for two hours.

This week the champion was Saketh Chavva with a win rate of 69%. The most exciting game of the day was between Saketh Chavva and Vishnu Pranav Kannan, our runner up for the day who had a win rate of 47%, which lasted a glorious 22 moves. Although a short match, the game saw some aggressive play by both the opponents. Having made some errors in the opening, Vishnu lost two minor pieces in the opening which eventually led to his loss in the end game.

The second runner up for the day was Ishant Gandikota who had an excellent win rate of 67%.

This week saw some extremely fresh names in the winners’ list and as always, this makes our hearts filled with pride and our chests a lot wider.

Congratulations to all the winners!