23 wins in 3 hours: GM Sadhwani records another podium finish at world level

By Paritosh Pramanik
October 15, 2020
AT AN age when teenagers find it difficult to sit idle at one place for even a few minutes, Grandmaster Raunak Sadhwani, all of 14 years, carved out stupendous performance in just three hours in
the online chess at international level.
In yet another amazing performance, Nagpur’s only Grandmaster Sadhwani, finished second best in the Arena 960 blitz online chess tournament which was held on lichess.org platform.
Starting with a loss and some inconsistent performance initially, chess prodigy of city Sadhwani recorded whopping 23 wins out of 32 in three hours to claim second spot in the competition which saw around 465 Grandmasters and International Masters participate from around the globe.
The Chess 960 Titled Arena Championship was organised exclusively for titled masters which had three minutes time control.
Sadhwani, who is being rated highly by none other than Grandmaster and former world champion Viswanathan Anand, continued to topple some of the higher rated Grandmasters. He also managed to hold eventual champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan along with some other Grandmasters.
Sadhwani, India’s fourth youngest Grandmaster and Maharashtra’s youngest sportsperson to win Shiv Chhatrapati award, played cleverly which helped him fetch a winning percentage of 72 per cent. He finished with an excellent performance rating of 2521 with 23 wins from 32 boards in the competition garnering 81 points.
His domination was such that Sadhwani, during the middle of the competition, registered 19 victories and four draws.
After starting with a defeat, Sadhwani, recorded a win but lost his third round match. He regained composure and recorded another win but lost his fifth round match. He then registered two back to back wins but couldn’t maintained the winning run.
A quick learner he is, Sadhwani then eked out some splendid performances as he registered six wins on the trot to bounce back in contention of a podium finish.
Two draws with a win in between saw Sadhwani taking control of the game. From then on there was no looking back as the talented GM blasted his way to top of the table with 11 successive wins.
“There was nothing I thought at that time, I just played chess, without thinking about results,” Sadhwani told ‘The Hitavada’ on his slow start to the competition when he bounced back with 11 successive victories after recording not so favourable results.
“I am happy with my performance. Playing with world’s top and strong opponents and finishing on the podium always feels great. 960 is my favourite version in chess. I enjoy playing it,” is how Sadhwani summed up his brilliant performance.