Parth Pandey wins CCBW Chess, Aiman Akhtar Best Girl, Aaryav Mulwani Jr. Champion

Lucknow.  Parth Pandey won the CCBW Intra-Club Chess with 6/7 points at Clarks Awadh Hotel in Lucknow today. Aaryav Mulwani became the junior champion with 4/7 points. Aiman Akhtar was the Best Girl with 6/7 points. The prizes were given away by Mrs Agni Shikha Verma, principal of Awadh ITI.

After the main rounds, Lucknow’s top junior, Fide-rated international player, 18-year-old Harshit Amarnani, conducted an exhibition match playing 16 players at the same time in what is called a chess simul. Harshit won all the games dropping a draw only to Parth. Harshit walked about 1,000 steps for an hour going from board to board!

Enaith Habibullah was leading throughout the tournament till he lost to Aiman and had to settle for second place with 5/6. Araddhya Garg had same points, but was third on the basis of Bucholz tiebreak system.

Aaryav showed fine endgame technique to promote a pawn versus higher-rated Myra. Enaith was in a winning position with two Queens! Aiman pulled off a miracle in a cleverly conducted checkmate. Parth and Aiman game was an exhibition of traditional Indian chess with Parth winning. Aiman crushed Araddhya to stay top-scorer in the Girls’ section.

Chinmaya Narain Agarwal was second in junior section with 3.5 points. Myra Agarwal and Aditi Mohan were second and third in the girls section on tiebreak with 4 points each.

Fide arbiter Naveen Karthikeyan, author of 18×64 Chess Class, Life Lessons with Bhagavad Gita shlokas, conducted the tournament. CCBW director and former UP State Champion, Dr Junaid Ahmad said, “All thanks to our government and administration, we are lucky to return to the over-the-board tournaments after two years. It feels like a dream. We have a big open tournament of more than 200 players coming up soon.”

Final top standings (points) 

• Seniors : Parth 6, Enaith, Araddhya, Shaan 5, Pragnya, Aarav 4, Abhyuday 3.5, Aarya 3
• Juniors : Aaryav 4, Chinmay 3.5, Mahir, Kriday 3, Vivaan, Kulraj 2
• Girls : Aiman 6, Myra, Aditi 4, Sarisha 3.5, Prisha 3, Kavya 2.5, Arishka 2