Ishan Ghate – The Budding Champion of the Week

This week’s Chess KLUB Open Tournament saw an incredible participation of 102 students with Ishan Ghate as the champion among these brilliant minds with a marvellous score of 7.5 out of 9 rounds. It’s quite unimaginable to see a 5 1/2 year old boy outperform 100 other players to become the Champion of the Week. Quite an accomplishment indeed. Kudos to Ishan and his perseverance.

In third place, we had Sriranga Narapuram with a score of 7.5 as well. Sriranga and Ishan played an interesting game against each other in the third round. Sriranga opened the game with the Caro-Kann Defence, and the game continued to be equal till Sriranga posed excess pressure on a pinned knight and eventually became an exchange up. Sriranga then strengthened his attack and won another bishop.

The two then exchanged their queens and entered the end game with Sriranga’s rook, pawns, and king against Ishan’s king and pawns. On the 44th move, Sriranga moved his rook to a square that caused a stalemate making this game end as a draw. In second place we had Advit Gupta with a score of 7.5 out of 9 as well.

Yajat Biyani was the winner at our Beginner Level tournament with a perfect score of 6 out of 6 followed by Sidharth Chanchlani with a score of 4.5 out of 6.

Our winner and runner up for the day played an extremely engaging match. Yajat became a pawn up in the opening of this game followed by Sidharth blundering his knight early into the game. Yajat then gained Sidharth’s g7 pawn and opened up Sidharth’s kingside. In the middle game, Yajat posed a knight fork on Sidharth’s king and queen forcing Sidharth to resign.

Harsika Kasilingam was our second runner up with a great score of 3.5 out of 6. 

In the Intermediate Tournament, we had 47 of our budding masters competing against each other with Vivaan Bhatt at the top of our winner list with a fantastic score of 8 out of 9.

Viraj Divekar was our runner up with a score of 7 out of 9, and our winner and runup drew a match against each other. The game opened with the Italian Game opening and the game continued to be equal till the middle game. Viraj became an exchange down in the middle game due to a positional error executed by him during a trade of the minor pieces. Viraj recovered this disadvantage at the beginning of the end game, which was followed by Vivaan capturing multiple pawns in the end game.

The two then exchanged their rooks, and Viraj regained some of the lost pawns leaving the two kings and one of Vivaan’s pawns on the board. Although Vivaan managed to convert this extra pawn into a queen, he blundered this queen, forcing it to be declared a draw. In third place, we had Adhvik Manoj with a wonderful score of 6 out of 9. 

In our Advanced Tournament, we had Devansh Pamecha as our champion with an excellent score of 4.5 out of 5 followed by Sriranga Narapuram in second place.

Our winner and runner up shared an interesting match. The game opened with the Italian Game: Classical Variation followed by Sriranga opening his ‘f’ and creating a rook battery to attack Devansh’s kingside. Sriranga then won a few pawns giving him a good advantage. Fortunately, Devansh regained these pawns, and the two traded their queens entering the end game with one rook and each and Devansh having a pawn more than Sriranga.

The two then traded their rooks, and Devansh could not convert his extra pawn into a queen making this game a draw. Sriranga completed this tournament with a score of 3.5 followed by Archit Singh gaining 3 out of 5. 

Yajat Biyani once again showed his talent by gaining the first place at the Beginner Battle and a record-breaking win rate of 100%.

Yajat played his last game against our runner up Moksh Mehta who had a win rate of 50%. Yajat blundered his knight in the opening followed by Moksh blundering his queen in the middle game. This gave an overall advantage to Moksh, allowing Yajat to strengthen his attack. To conclude the game, Yajat made another queen and checkmated Moksh with two queens.

Our second runner up was Vihaan Sri with a perfect win rate of 100% as well. 

In the Intermediate Battle, we had Vivaan Bhatt as our champion for the second time this week with a fabulous win rate of 86%.

Vivaan played an interesting game against our runner up Ayush Sarraf who completed the tournament with an impressive win rate of 82%. The game opened with the Italian Game and Vivaan won a minor piece in the middle game. The two players then traded their minor pieces and entered the end game. On the 36th move, Ayush blundered his queen forcing him to resign, making Vivaan the winner.

In third place, we had Adhvik Manoj with a wonderful win rate of 88%. 

Finally, we had the Advanced Battle where we had Sanjey Ramachandran as our winner with a win rate of 55%.

Vishnu Kannan and Sanjey played an aggressive game against each other. Vishnu started the game with the King’s Gambit, and Sanjey opened up Vishnu’s kingside in the middle game. Sanjey won a pawn in the middle game and gained control over the centre. Sanjey offered a poison knight to Vishnu which Vishnu captured, allowing Sanjey to execute a back rank checkmate.

Vishnu completed the tournament in second place with a win rate of 50% followed by Saket Reddy with a win rate of 60% in third place. 

This week saw some exceptional performances and some brilliant matches, and we hope to see similar results in the following week as well.

Congratulations to all the Winners.