Scholastic Chess Tournament in Charlotte, NC
The most prestigious section of the Chess Klub Ballantyne Scholastic Chess Tournament, the Deep Thinkers’ Championship, drew 14 talented players on July 30th.
The first round began alongside the “A Star is Born” and “Express Challenge” sections. Winners in round 1 included top seed Shravan Dash, Aman Sreshta, Samarth Gujanatti. Purakk Vardhan, Harini Ramesh and Namish Kondabathini.
The other sections of the tournament ran ahead of schedule allowing the Deep Thinker to proceed alone. Round 2 winners were Shravan Dash, Namish Kondabathini, Aman Sreshta, Landon Gareau, Zakhar Archakov and Sreejan Rajasekaran.
Round 3 pitted the tournament’s two top seeds, Shravan Dash and Namish Kondabathini. At first, Namish appeared to be making headway with the white pieces as his queen invaded Shravan’s kingside. Soon, however, Shravan organized and threatened even to trap the white queen. Still, Namish could have gained a sizable advantage if he had played pawn to c4 on the twenty-sixth move. Missing that chance, he found himself forced to sacrifice a knight just to extract his queen. After that, Shravan smoothly converted his advantage. The other two round winner, Aman Shreshta was unable to defeat the also undefeated Landon Gareau. Other round three winners included Samarth Gujanatti, Harini Ramesh, Devansh Pamecha, Saanvi Kasera and Suhas Veerapalli.
The final round pitted Shravan Dash with 3 points versus Aman Shreshta with 2.5. After an initial phase of subtle maneuvering, Shravan’s King’s Indian Attack formation swarmed over his opponent’s position for the win. Other winners in round 4 included Namish Kondabathini, Landon Gareau, Harini Ramesh, Zakhar Archakov, Purakk Vardhan and Vikas Amoolya.
With the Championship decided, three players remained tied for the second to fourth positions. A five minute tie-break round robin was organized to resolve the ties. Namish Kondabathini secured the second place by defeating both Harini Ramesh and Landon Gareau in some tense matches. Landon then defeated Harini to lock up third place.
Shravan Dash finished first in the Deep Thinker section of the CHESS KLUB Ballantyne’s Scholastic Championship. Namish Kondabathini was second. Landon Gareau was third. Harini Ramesh was fourth.
