Eshan Kadri – The Strong Beginner

On Saturday we had the most prestigious event of the week, the Weekly Open Tournament where we saw a participation of 111 students this week.

Adhvik Manoj stole the show with a win rate of 94% with his most remarkable match being against Sriranga Narapuram. Adhvik played the Queen’s Gambit and Sriranga accepted the gambit in the opening. The two then exchanged their queens very early into the game, on the 7th move.

The game then continued to be significantly equal through out the middle game till Sriranga missed a back rank checkmate on the 23rd move which allowed Adhvik to prevail as the winner.

In second place we had Saket Reddy with a fantastic win rate of 89% followed by Vivaan Bhatt with a brilliant win rate of 82%.

On the Sunday Battle Arena day we had 37 students participate in the Beginner level tournament.

The runner up of the day was Rayhan Ulla with a wonderful win rate of 65% followed by Abheek Sanagapali in third place with an amazing win rate of 80%. Our second and third seed played an interesting match against each other. Rayhan opened the game with a rare opening called the Englund Gambit. By the middle game Rayhan was two pawns up and had a better position. On the 26th move, Abheek pinned Rayhan’s night and queen. To this, Rayhan replied with a knight fork attacking Abheek’s rook and queen.

However, as Rayhan’s knight moved, Abheek captured Rayhan’s queen and simultaneously gave Rayhan’s king a check, making Rayhan’s fork and attack on Abheek’s queen invalid. Hence, Abheek exchanged his rook for Rayhan’s queen. On the 43rd move, Abheek blunered his queen, giving Rayhan an opportunity to take over the game.

On the 68th move, Abheek had a knight and a king left while Rayhan just had his king left which caused a Draw by Insufficiency.

In the Intermediate Tournament we had 59 students with Jay Mahendran as the champion with an excellent win rate of 68%.

Jay played a brilliant game against our runner up Adhvik Manoj who had a great  win rate of 72%. Jay opened the game with the Queen pawn opening and became a pawn up in the opening. In the middle game, Jay became another pawn up and had a passed pawn. By the 42nd move, Jay was a knight and two pawns up and on the 50th move Adhvik resigned.

Parth Mishra came third with a win rate of 71%.

The final event for this Sunday was the Advanced tournament with Sriranga Narapuram as our champion with a spectacular win rate of 88%.

Sriranga played an aggressive game against our second runner up Saket Reddy who concluded the event with a win rate of 62%. They played the Italian Game opening and had a relatively equal opening with Saket having double pawns. The two then went on to exchange their queens on the 11th move.

On the 17th move Saket captured a poison pawn that caused him to lose his knight giving Sriranga a good advantage. The two players then exchanged their rooks as well and Sriranga had his bishop and pawns against Saket’s pawns. On the 56th move Sriranga made a new queen and won the game on the 62nd move.

The second seed at this event was Advit Gupta with a fabulous win rate of 92%.

In our second round of battles for the week we had Eshan Kadri as the champion for the Beginner Battle with an excellent win rate of 83%.

Eshan played an extremely aggressive game against our second runner up Rayhan Ulla who had a win rate of 73%. Eshan got his queen really early in the game and dominated the position by playing an attacking game for the beginning itself. Rayhan used his knight to protect his king from Eshan’s attacks.

Eshan captured this knight giving himself an easy path to checkmating Rayhan. Rayhan missed this checkmate and lost the game on the 8th move.

Yajat Biyani was our runner up with a fantastic win rate of 93%.

The Intermediate Battle had Vivaan Bhatt as the winner with an amazing win rate of 93% with his most impressive match being against Jethin Bastin, our second runner up who had a win rate of 69%.

Jethin played the Ruy Lopez opening and the game was significantly equal till the 19th move where Jethin blundered his knight. The two then exchanged queens and the game moved towards the end game. On the 30th move, Jethin blundered his rook as well after which he resigned immediately.

In second place we had Adhvik Manoj here with a marvelous win rate of 71%.

Our final event of the week saw some of the best games of the week and Saket Reddy topped this winner list of this Advanced Battle with a grand win rate of 70%.

Saket played a beautiful game against our second runner up Devansh Pamecha who completed this tournament with a win rate of 36%. Devansh opened with the Italian game opening and Saket won the two center pawns before entering the middle game giving him a positional upper hand.

The end game was between the rooks and Saket had two pawns more than Devansh, although, he also had a pair of double pawns. Saket oon traded the remaining rooks and promoted his pawn to make a queen. Saket won this game with a two quee checkmate on the 59th move.

Sanjey Ramachandran stood second with a win rate of 67%.

This week saw some attacking positions and mesmerizing games and we hope to have the same in the following week as well.

Congratulations to al the winners !