27th The Telegraph 2018 round 1-3: 37 players share lead with full point
Shahid Ahmed·7 min read
27th edition of The Telegraph Schools' Chess started 10 months after the previous edition concluded. This time over 425 children from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Philippines are participating. Youngest player of the meet Aayansh Burman of 4 years 9 months 0 days age made the inaugural move of the tournament. Top seeds had smooth sailing except a few upsets. Ninth seed of the tournament, Aditya Bikram Paul arrived late in the hall and he was shocked by unrated Agnivo Chakraborty in round 1, Shresth Mahapatra held Sadnan Hasan Dihan of Bangladesh to a draw in the 2nd round and Arunika Ghosh defeated Sambarta Banerjee in the 3rd round. In this report, we bring you photos, games and videos from round 1-3 of the tournament. Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Frequent upsets in each round in the longest running school level tournament of the country
4 years 9 months 0 days old Aayansh Burman is the youngest participant of the tournament | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Watch little Aayansh make the inaugural move of the tournament | Video: Shahid Ahmed
Ninth seed Aditya Bikram Paul was shocked by unrated Agnivo Chakraborty in round 1
Aditya Bikram Paul did not have a good start as he arrived late for round 1 and lost his game | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Despite gaining an exchange in early middle game, Aditya was unable to maintain advantage and he misplayed his opponent's attack and eventually lost the game.
Kazi Zarin Tasnim of Bangladesh lost to unrated Anshu Mondal | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Among other upsets of round 1:
Parjwal Basnet (1579, NEP) drew with Anurag Ganguly (IND)
Aranya Ghosh (IND) drew with CM Manon Raja Neer (1548, BAN)
Arka Datta Chaudhuri (IND) defeated Sinchan Basnet (1487, Nepal)
Dahal Mission (1390, NEP) lost to Debankar Banerjee (IND)
Sadnan Hasan of Bangladesh held to a draw by Shresth Mahapatra in round 2
Sadnan Hasan Dihan (BAN) was surprised by much lower rated 11-year old Shresth Mahapatra | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Sadnan got an advantage in the middle game and had a winning position till the endgame when he fell into a perpetual check trap and the game ended up in a draw. 11-year old Shresth did not give up and maintained his perseverance which paid off.
Sadnan missed a win and fell into a perpetual. Can you find the winning continuation for Black?
Ujaan Bhattacharya drew with much higher rated Praloy Sahoo | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Avirup Das Neogi drew with Debarghya Samanta in Closed Sicilian | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
A quick interview with Rajdeep Sarkar at the conclusion of round 2 | Video: Shahid Ahmed
Among other upsets of round 2:
Tushar Bhunya (1134) drew with Arijit Mukherjee (1566)
Gairick Saha (1127) defeated Shounak Mazumder (1528)
Aditya Sinha (1114) defeated Sagnik Saha (1478)
Krish Adhikari (1452, NEP) drew with Saptarshi Talukdar (1109)
Atreya Nandy (1431) lost to Anirin Majumder (1091)
Eighth seeded Sambarta Banerjee suffered a loss against Arunika Ghosh
Sambarta Banerjee blundered against Arunika Ghosh | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Sambarta blundered in a completely drawn position in Rook-Knight vs. Rook-Bishop endgame.
Diya Chowdhury who is in a terrific form was halted to a draw by Soham Bhattacharyya (1290) in a marathon game spanning over 3.5 hours and 92 moves long | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
Reigning West Bengal State under-11 champion Alekhya Mukhopadhyay rolled his eyes when he blundered a checkmate against Debaprabho Gorai (1295) | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
White blundered checkmate here with 29.f4. Find out a better continuation for White here
Among other upsets of round 3:
Swarnoj Saha Talukdar (1257) drew with Swapnil Priyadarshi (1559)
Pratyush Mohapatra (1249) drew with Dhritabrata Kundu (1527)
Anubhab Gupta (1491) lost to Oishik Kundu (1244)
Mortuza Muhtadi Islam (1435, BAN) lost to Gairick Saha (1127, IND)
Bratajit Mukherjee (1105) drew with CM Manon Reja Neer (1458, BAN)
Photo Gallery:
Tournament Gate
Youngest participant of the tournament Aayansh Burman of 4 years 9 months 0 days inaugurates with 1.e4
Top seed FM Rajdeep Sarkar picks up three quick wins
Second seed FM Mitrabha Guha is yet to face a stiff challenge. He is also at 3.0/3
Koustav Chatterjee cruised with three straight wins
Samriddhaa Ghosh had some long games but she never seemed to be in danger
The Main Playing Hall which was formerly known as 'House of Friendship' has witnessed the world's who's who in action including Vishy Anand, Viktor Korchnoi, Nigel Short, Daniel King and many more
Over 425 players are playing in six different tournament halls
Even the stage has been converted to a playing arena
Youngest Aayansh after losing his first tournament match