Sadhwani stuns World No 2 GM Caruana

Principal Correspondent :

Goes down to eventual winner Nakamura in semis

NAGPUR’S only Grandmaster, 15-year-old Raunak Sadhwani is consistently making his mark at the international level. First, he became only Nagpurian to qualify for the eight-player knock-out Online Blitz Championship which had participation of over 600 top rated chess players. Then he created ripples by decimating top player of the world chess a couple of days back.

Though GM Sadhwani went down to eventual champion World Number One Hikaru Nakamura in the semi-finals, he did create a flutter when he stunned World Championship Challenger and star American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana in the quarter-finals. Immediately after GM Sadhwani’s stunning victory over Caruana, chess.com tweeted: Rising Indian star Raunak Sadhwani beats the world championship challenger @FabianoCaruana in a thrilling game & advances in the @chesscom #speedchess Grand Prix. Earlier in the 10-round blitz competition, GM Sadhwani got the better of globe’s best chess brains. He surprised Russian GM Artur Gabrielian in 96 moves and also stunned GM Pavel Anisimov in 83 moves. The youngest Nagpurian to receive Shiv Chhatrapati Award Sadhwani also shocked Armenian GM Haik Martirosyan, Russian Boris Savchenko, Artem Galaktionov, Armenian GM Vladmir Belous, Bangladesh’s GM Ziaur Rehman and Ireland’s Tarun Kanyamarala.

GM Sadhwani has performed well finishing second best in the 10-round Speed Chess Championship Online Grand Prix. He collected 8.5 points with a progressive score of 47.75 and had a tie for the second spot with six others. He finished eighth and had qualified for the knock-outs. In the fourth round, Sadhwani’s only loss came against one of the world’s toughest opponent in Netherlands’ Anish Giri. Giri, after his win had tweeted: Good to know an insanely unlucky defeat from GM Anish earlier today didn’t crush the kid’s dreams. A humble Sadhwani replied: Do you know what my favourite part of game is?

The opportunity to play with the Elite player like you and today I got that. Thanks for the game. There is always hope for a better tomorrow! Good Luck. BTW it feels great to see a tweet from your favourite player!!