The much-awaited International Chess Championship, for players less than 1500 rating, was held on 21st August. 90 players participated and played 9 rounds amongst each other. The stars at this event were our top 5 players with Nguyen Doan Giang as our champion who won a cash prize of $500, followed by J.R. Abhishek in second place who won a cash prize of $250.

The second runner up at this event was Omm Aditya Khadanga, who won a prize of $125 and the fourth position was held by Shubham Kanade with a great cash prize of $75. Finally, we had Sushanth Shetty in fifth place who won a cash prize of $50. Let’s take a look at some of the games our winners played:

Our champion, Nguyen Doan Giang, had an excellent score of 7.5 and played a brilliant game against our runner-up J.R.Abhishek. The opening focused on a pawn-centered game, and the two players exchanged their minor pieces in the middle game. They then exchanged their Queens, and as the game progressed to the end game, Abhishek won a pawn.

Nguyen created a passed pawn that he converted into a Queen on the 63rd move. Abhishek trapped Nguyen’s King in a way that forced Nguyen’s King to repeat the position thrice consecutively, causing a draw by three-fold repetition. 

Our runner-up, J.R.Abhishek, played an aggressive game against or fifth seed, Sushanth Shetty, in the final round. The two players exchanged minor pieces in the opening, and Sushanth tried to pose an attack on Abhishek’s King in the middle game. Sushanth trapped Abhishek’s Knight on the 27th move followed by Abhishek posing a strong attack on Sushanth’s King.

Sushanth then made a knight blunder, allowing Abhishek to equalize the situation. The two players then exchanged their Queens and entered a deep end game. Abhishek then promoted his last pawn and created a passed pawn which forced Sushanth to resign on the 77th move.

The second runner up, Omm Aditya played an excellent game against our veteran champion, Shalvi Deshmukh in the 7th round. The game began with the Vienna Game Opening and Omm became a pawn up in the middle game.

Omm then went on to win another pawn and the two then exchanged their Queens. Unfortunately Shalvi blundered her Rook on the 29th move and the two players then exchanged a Rook each. Shalvi resigned a few moves after due to the disadvantage she had.

Our fourth seed, Shubham Kanade played an interesting against Aarav Patel where Shubham began the game with the Sicilian Defense. Aarav brought his Rook out early into the game and posed an attack on Shubham’s King. Shubham then won a pawn in the middle game which was followed by him tactically winning a Bishop.

This disadvantage pushed Aarav to resign on the 26th move. 

The International Chess Championship was a major success and saw some exceptional games and results.

Congratulations to all the winners.