The Strategem April 2018 Tournament happened on Sunday, April 15 and it was a resounding success thanks to the enthusiasm from the participants and their active participation supported by the parents! We had a total of 28 participants at the tournament that could’ve been 29 had one not cancelled participation at the last minute.
Conducting this tournament was a total joy for me. I’ve found my inspiration to support the kids in their aspirations at this beautiful game in their infectious enthusiasm and liking for the game. All the participants conducted themselves at their finest behavior and in compliance with the rules they were asked to observe. This has inspired me to do my best to provide continued best exposure to the participants to inspire them.
The winner of this tournament was 15 year old Jivitesh Praveen with a perfect score of 6/6! Jivitesh showed nice form and faced some serious competition. But he took care of business well!
Jivitesh being awarded the winners trophy! Photo: Neha Bhatt
On second place was 9 year old Mannan Belani with a score of 5/6. Having lost his only game of the tournament to Jivitesh, Mannan showed some nice form and active play to take care of the competition!
Mannan Belani – winner of the Trophy for the Second Prize! Photo: Neha Bhatt
The Third Place Trophy produced a tiebreaker between 10 year old Aryan Jangada and 9 year old Ronan Parashar. They were both tied at 4.5/6. This tiebreaker went all the way to the Armageddon Game! Facing off in the first Blitz Tiebreak with a time control of 5 minutes for the game without any increment or delay Ronan won convincingly playing White. Ronan entered the second game knowing that even a draw would secure the tiebreak win for him. Aryan was totally focused on the task before him, and noticing Ronan’s intentions after a premature draw offer from him Aryan pushed on to score a fine win playing White in the second game! We were looking at another best of two games tie breaker with a time control of 3 minutes for the game. With colors reversed this time Ronan was convincingly beaten by Aryan playing Black in the first game. But he found himself fight back with the White pieces to score a win and level the score in game 2! This left me with the last option of giving preparing them for the Armageddon game.
Armageddon Game rules stated 5 minutes for White and 3 minutes for Black, but White has to play to win. In the event of a draw Black would be the winner. We went through a best of four coin tosses to decide who will be calling the coin toss for the choice of colors. Having won the best of four Aryan called “Heads” and in turned out “Tails”. Ronan had won the toss and had to make the choice of colors. After deliberation Ronan chose to play Black. Facing the obvious pressure of playing with the White pieces for a win after an already exhausting tournament Aryan showed great spirit in finding the most active continuation to keep all options open for him. Aryan soon found himself overexposing his King in the initiative he’d undertaken. Ronan finished off the game with a checkmate on the board.
Much as it was a heartbreaking moment for Aryan, he deserves all the standing ovation for a spirited fight to the finish and making the most of all the options he had. Ronan showed some nice presence of mind in this game and was able to win the game and the Third Place!
Ronan Parashar winning the Third Place Trophy. Photo: Neha Bhatt
We had the Strategem Rising Stars trophy winners- Sumaiya Sheikh and Vir Sanghavi. Both showed nice spirit and passion to keep improving at their game! I’m confident they’ll be contending for the main spots soon!
Vir Sanghavi – the Strategem Rising Star with his little brother Adi Sanghavi. Adi is an up and coming Rising Star in Strategem! Photo: Neha Bhatt
Among the other participants it begs observance of the fighting spirit shown by 11 year old Aryan Gupta and 6 year old Mohini Goswami. Aryan found himself in second place on the better tiebreak heading into the last round only to face Jivitesh on Board #1. Aryan gave it his best shot to make the most of the chances he had and went down in fighting spirit. Mannan and Aryan were tied with 4/5 heading into the last round and faced some stiff competition on boards #2 & #1 respectively. Scoring the win on board # 2 Mannan came clear second and scoring their wins, Aryan Jangada and Ronan Parashar managed to bump half a point ahead of Aryan with a final score of 4.5 out of 6 rounds. This left Aryan finsihing 5th in a field of 28 participants! A solid performance with a bright future ahead of him!
Mohini Goswami is a remarkable talent at 6 years old! The little Master is fantastically talented with a lot of room for improvement in really short time! And theres a lot of time ahead of this little jewel! Mohini found herself fighting for the top spots after 3 rounds facing off the top talent on Board #2. Besides the tough competition Mohini may have also experienced some fatigue after the three rounds. But Mohini is rock solid and kept her cool to finish off in the 9th place out of 28 participants with a score of 3.5/6 that could’ve easily been 4/6 had she not squandered away a draw by stalemate in a crushing position in her first round game. I’m sure a bright future lies ahead of her!
It was nice to see participants noting their moves on score sheets / pads! I’ve always insisted that participants note down their moves as its the best form of learning- to learn from their own games. I invited those participants to comment and send me any of their games they’d like to share with everyone. Ronan was diligently taking notes- even when being under 5 minutes in his round 5 game against Jivitesh. Ronan has sent me his round 2 game against Aarav with his comments and I’m delighted to present it to everyone to learn and find inspiration to learn from their own games. I’ve inserted my own comments (JB) and variations for him and others to further study!
The tournaments will always be for the participants as nothing is going to be a fun, exciting and learning experience without all of their best efforts and discipline, but much credit and gratitude goes to the parents for supporting these endeavors! Enjoy some of the moments from our April Tournament below!
Aryan and Ronan facing off in the tiebreaker. Photo: Neha
