Rishi Nair – Champion of the Week

Rishi Nair - Player of the Week

Chess KLUB allows students to explore their games practically through the weekly tournaments we host. Let’s take a look at this week’s winner list and the exceptional games that took place.

On the 18th of September, we had the Chess KLUB Swiss Open Tournament, where we had Rishi Nair as our champion with a perfect score of 7 points over 7 rounds. Rishi played his best game against the second runner up at this event, Saket Reddy, who had an excellent score of 5 points. The game began with the Queen Pawn Opening, and Rishi won a pawn in the middle game.

As the game progressed, Saket made a knight blunder, giving Rishi a further advantage which he used to pose an attack on Saket’s King. Although the attack was strong, Saket managed to exchange Queens, and in the end game, Rishi was a Bishop and a few pawns up. Rishi then created a passed pawn that became a Queen and checkmated Saket’s King on the 55th move. In the second place, we had Paarth Chowdhary, who had a grand score of 5.5 points. 

The Chess KLUB Classic Arena Tournament was held on Sunday, where we had Adhvik Manoj in first place with a spectacular win rate of 85%, and he played his most interesting game against the runner up at this tournament, Aadithiya Vasudevan, who had a win rate of 73%. The game began with the Two Knights Defense version of the Italian Game Opening, and the two players exchanged their Queens early into the game.

As the game progressed, Adhvik trapped Aadithiya’s Knight, making him a piece up. Aadithiya then exchanged a Rook for a Bishop, giving Adhvik a further advantage. This advantage forced Aadithiya to resign on the 31st move, making Adhvik the winner. In third place, we had Advit Gupta with a win rate of 75%.

The Intermediate Battle Arena was held on the first day of the week, with Parv Parikh leading the winner chart with a perfect win rate of 100%. Parv played his most exciting game against Avyan Yeluguri, the runner up at this event, who had a win rate of 88% in the last round.

The game began with the Giuoco Piano variation of the Italian Game Opening where Parv posed a Knight and Queen pin with his Bishop, which allowed him to open up Avyan’s Kingside. Parv then brought his Queen to strengthen this attack and checkmated Avyan’s King on the 10th move. The second runner up at this event was Aarush Vasanthakumar, who had a win rate of 33%. 

The Weekly Classic Arena Tournament was held on Wednesday where we had Aariv Upadhyay in the first place with a wonderful win rate of 55% followed by Vishnu Kannan in second place with a win rate of 67% and Aadhithya Anandaramakrishna in third place with a win rate of 60%.

The most spectated game at this event was played between the champion and the runner up and this game began with the Queen Pawn Opening. Vishnu won a pawn in the opening followed by an exchange of a Bishop and Knight for Aariv’s Rook.

In the middle game, Vishnu blundered a Rook and then fell for a Queen and Rook pin posed by Aariv’s Bishop. This major disadvantage forced Vishnu to resign on the 21st move. 

This week saw an amazing winner list and we hope to see similar results every week.

Congratulations to all the winners.