Jay Mahendran – The Game Changer in Tournaments

This week started with the eventful Chess KLUB Open Tournament with 118 aspiring participants making this event a delight for the spectators.

The runner up for the evening was Jay Mahendran with an excellent win rate of 52%. The most engaging game at this event was between Jay and Yoshitha Battula. This 60-move gripping match began with the King’s Gambit Opening followed by an equal middle game. Towards the end of the middle game, Yoshitha fell for a fork allowing Jay to become an exchange up. He judiciously used this advantage in the end game where he went on to win his opponent’s rook as well.

These advantages led Jay to victory soon enough where he checkmated Yoshitha with two rooks and a queen. 

On Sunday we host a series of Battle Arena Tournaments beginning with our young stars competing in the Beginner Battle Arena Tournament.

This week we saw an overwhelming participation of forty-four of our beginners. Johan Chavara was the champion of the afternoon with an incredible win rate of 70%. Johan played an interesting against our second runner up Reyansh Bansal, who completed the tournament with a lovely win rate of 71%. This game saw an unusual opening followed by Johan blundering his rook in the opening. Johan then captured a pawn which was technically a queen blunder.

Unfortunately, Reyansh missed this blunder that Johan committed and in turn blundered his queen. Later in the game, Reyansh tried to give a discovered check to Johan’s king by simultaneously attacking Johan’s queen. However, the rook Reyansh was using to give this discovered attack was in the queen file and could be captured by Johan’s queen. This gave Johan a huge advantage that he further converted into a victory.

In second place we had Harshith Nelabhotla with a wonderful win rate of 86%. 

The second event of the day was the Intermediate Battle Arena Tournament where we had 42 participants with Vivaan Bhatt as the winner of the day with an excellent win rate of 89%.

Vivaan played his final game against Paarth Chowdhary, our runner up, who had a win rate of 67%. This game is an example of excellent tactics displayed in an end game. The first 30 moves of the match saw equal advantages shared by both the opponents besides Vivaan having an extra pawn along with doubled pawns.

On the 31st move, Vivaan gained another pawn which allowed one of his double pawns to form a passer pawn enabling him to make a queen and further win the game eventually. Rishab Ghosh was our second runner up who had an admirable win rate of 87%. 

The final event on a Sunday is the Advanced Battle Arena Tournament where our experienced students put up some great games on display.

The champion this week was Saket Reddy with the highest win rate of 100%. Saket played an extremely aggressive match against our runner up Adithiyaa Vasudevan, our runner up for the day, who had a win rate of 40%. The game began with the Alekhine Defense followed by an early exchange of queens. Saket then penetrated Adithiyaa’s king’s territory forcing Adithiyaa to give up his bishop and a pawn. Saket then formed a ‘battery’ with his two rooks and threatened a checkmate. The only way to stop this checkmate was for Adithiyaa to sacrifice his rook, hence he resigned on the 24th move.

In third place, we had Vishnu Kannan with a win rate of 50%. 

The second series of our battle arena tournaments took place on Wednesday beginning with our Beginner Battle Arena tournament.

The champion of this tournament was Johan Chavara with an excellent win rate of 82%. One of the best games played by Johan was against our second runner up Reyansh Arora who had a win rate of 75%. Reyansh fell for an absolute pin on the sixth move during their game, causing him to lose his queen early on in the game giving Johan a massive advantage. On the thirty-first move, Johan checkmated Reyansh’s king with a pawn.

The runner up at this event was Deepsy Patel with a win rate of 58%. 

At the Intermediate Battle Tournament, we had forty-seven students compete against each other with Vivaan Bhatt as the winner with an exceptional win rate of 85%.

One of Vivaan’s most remarkable games was against Rushil Karande, our second runner up who had a win rate of 50%. This game saw some interesting twists and turns beginning with Rushil gaining a rook and a significant attack on Vivaan’s king by the method of a discovered attack. This was followed by Rushil losing his rook due to a checkmate threat posed by Vivaan. Finally, Rushil blundered his queen, allowing Vivaan to turn this game into a victory.

In second place we had Rishab Ghosh with a win rate of 63%. 

The final event of the week is the Advanced Battle Arena Tournament where Druheen Das took home the championship title with a record-breaking win rate of 100%.

Druheen played a very engaging game against Sanjey Ramachandran, our runner up, who gracefully completed this tournament with a win rate of 60%. The game began with Sanjey invading Druheen’s king’s territory with a knight fork, causing Druheen to lose his rook. This was followed by Druheen invading Sanjey’s king with his queen threatening checkmate along with Druheen possessing a very strong passer pawn. This forced the two to exchange queens, but soon after Druheen converted his passer pawn into a queen. Sanjey resigned on the 21st move.

In third place, we had Adithiyaa Vasudevan with a win rate of 44%.

This week saw an interesting turn of events with some aggressive games and display of fine tactics. The competitiveness and dedication we saw in our students this week have made us very eager to see similar performances in the following week.

Congratulations to all the winners.