Open International Chess | Raunak Sadhwani wins bronze medal in Blitz Chess
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The first grandmaster from Nagpur, Raunak Sadhwani managed to clinch the bronze medal in the 9th Open International Chess tournament in Corsica, France. The 14-year-old from Maharashtra had only cleared the second norm a few days back to become the young International Master from the state.
Sadhwani is seemingly having a bright future ahead of him after he proved himself in the shortest format of chess in France on Monday. The podium finish saw the student getting a trophy as well as prize money of 77,000 as he came third out of 112 players participating from 17 countries including 17 GMs and 10 IMs.
Elo-rated 2476, the youngster went on to win against as many as six opponents ranked higher than him and held two Grand Masters in the process before he lost the penultimate round to end the nine-round international tournament with seven points. He ended joint with three others but the Buchholz Tie-Break system saw him missing out on the silver medal to Ukraine's GM Alexander Kovchan by just half Buchholz point (44.5 to 44).
Sadhwani’s first game was with his black pieces against Prithu Gupta before he went onto play France’s Antoine Podvin in the second round. He managed to beat Clement Rabineau with black pieces to garner full point and share the lead at the end of the third round.
Since then, he managed to hold higher-rated GMs in the fourth and fifth round respectively in Poland’s GM Michal Krasenkow and local IM Alex Delorme. He took his tally of points to four and slipped to the joint second position in five rounds. The sixth round saw him beating India’s Deep Sengupta before stunning Pauline Guichard of France with black pieces.
The eighth round was against Vladimir Onischuk of Ukraine and Sadhwani missed a move that brought him his only at the hand of the eventual champion. However, he still managed his joint second position and came back to meet eighth-seeded GM Olivier Renet and won it.
