Every week begins with a bang with the Chess KLUB Open Tournament where we see the maximum participation with extremely enthusiastic students paving the path to greatness.

This week was stolen by Ishant Gandikota who was the winner of the Open Tournament with an excellent win rate of 81%. The tournament saw enormous participation of 118 students that played against each other for three hours. The most admired game of the afternoon was between Ishant and Vivaan Bhatt that caught everyone’s attention for 39 moves.

Ishant blundered three pawns in the opening, but Vivaan soon gave away this advantage by placing his rook at a square where it could be captured by the tactical skills used by Ishant. This was followed by a queen exchange that took the game to the end game, where Ishant further trapped Vivaan’s rook making Vivaan resign on the thirty-ninth move.

In second place we had Advit Gupta with the highest win rate of 100% followed by Rudra Mishra in third place with a win rate of 56%. 

Sundays are definitely fun days here at Chess KLUB as we have our battle arena tournaments allowing our students to have active minds even on a holiday.

The first event on Sunday is the Beginner Battle Arena Tournament, where we saw the participation of 35 students. The man of the hour was Vivan Sarraf with a spectacular win rate of 72%. He played an interesting game against Harsika Kasilingam, our runner up, who had a brilliant win rate of 91%. The game was a short and sweet one, but it saw some impressive tactics used by Vivan.

Vivan sacrificed his bishop to open Harsika’s king that led to a recurrent attack by Vivan on her king. This caused Harsika’s king to get trapped on the h6 square leading to a checkmate. Our second runner up for the day was Vihaan Thota, with the highest win rate of 100%. 

The second event of the day was the Chess KLUB Intermediate Battle where we had an overwhelming participation of 56 students.

The winner here was Adhvik Manoj with a win rate of 89%. Adhivik’s final match against Shiven Patel was incredibly remarkable. The two played some of the best moves according to the computer analysis with an engaging end game between two rooks and one rook and a bishop and knight.

This game was neck to neck till Shiven missed a fork and lost his rook, leaving him in a very tight position, forcing him to resign. The runner-up was Vivaan Bhatt with a win rate of 59% followed by Rishab Ghosh who had a win rate of 82%. 

The final event of the day was the Chess KLUB Advanced Battle Arena where our pro league students give one another a run for their games.

This week the reigning champion was Rudra Mishra with a wonderful win rate of 67% over the 24 games he played. His most striking game was against Sanjey Ramachandran. The two played an extremely aggressive and tactically filled game. Opening with the two knights defense, Rudra further went on to sacrificing his bishop to open up Sanjey’s king, forcing Sanjey to bring his king out with perpetual checks and attack threats.

This brought Sanjey’s king into Rudra’s territory leading to checkmate on the 31st move. In second place we had Rishi Bhaumik with a win rate of 59%.

We have a second round of Battle Arena Tournaments held on Fridays.

The first battle to take place is the Battle between the beginners, which is the Beginner Battle that takes place for two hours. The champion of this event was Veer Malik who had a wonderful win rate of 91%. In second place we had Andrea Sam with the highest win rate of 100%. Veer Malik and Andrea played a very engaging game. This game saw a great number of twists including both opponents having a series of advantages and disadvantages. Finally, the end saw a queen against two rooks till Veer Malik blundered his queen causing him to resign, making Andrea the winner.

In third place, we had Johan Chavara with a win rate of 53%. 

The second event of the day was the Intermediate Battle Arena Tournament where we had 48 students battle the afternoon against one another.

The winner here was Vivaan Bhatt who had a win rate of 76%. His final game against our second runner up, Vivaan Budhian, won a great deal of attention. The game was fairly equal until Vivaan Budhian blundered his minor piece under a pin which was followed by Vivaan Bhatt pushing a severe attack on his opponent’s king eventually leading to a checkmate. This battle of the two Vivaans was indeed a must-watch.

Adhvik Manoj in second place had a marvelous win rate of 88%.

The final event of the week was the Advanced Battle Arena where we had Druheen Das with a win rate of 88%.

Druheen played a highly spectated match against the runner up of the day Saket Reddy, who had a win rate of 67%. The game saw some brilliant moves and tactics and the end game got even more interesting when there were only two bishops and some pawns left. Druheen made a passed pawn that saved eventually took him to victory causing Saket to resign on the fifty-first move.

The second runner up was Dron Das with a win rate of 71%. 

The week saw some brilliant games and every game saw an interesting turn of events that wowed our spectators. Like always, we hope to see the same amount of excitement and sincerity in the games next week. 

Congratulations to all the winners.