City’s only Grandmaster (GM) Raunak Sadhwani clinched silver medal in the three-hour online Chess 960 Arena Chess Championship played exclusively for titled masters.
As many as 465 IMs and GMs from across the world participated in the three-minute time control Arena blitz championship.
An Arena tournament invented by legendary Bobby Fischer is a fast paced, action-filled event, where a player tries to earn points in a fixed time. The event that was played on the platform of lichess, Raunak’s second position helped him earn prize money of 18,500.
Of the 32 games Raunak played, Maharashtra’s youngest GM had a winning rate of 72% and gave performance rating of 2521 to finish the event, collecting 81 points. Raunak posted victories in 23 rounds, held four GMs and suffered five losses to finish second against an average rating of 2242 Elo of his respective opponents.Azerbaijan’s top GM and World No 7 Mamedyarov Shakhriyar clinched one of the strongest tournaments played from home with a winning rate of 80%. In his stellar performance, Raunak held eventual champion Shakhriyar and third placed Russian GM Grigory Oparin to a draw before scoring upset wins over some higher rated GMs.