Karnav, Kartikey clinch U-16, U-8 titles

Karnav Rastogi. Pics/Ashish Raje

Karnav Rastogi of RN Podar School and Kartikey Kumar of Trinity International School won the boys U-16 and U-8 titles in the MSSA inter-school chess tournament at St Sebastian High School (Chembur) on Saturday. Karnav got the better of Ridhan Bhandari of Arya Vidya Mandir in the final round. "The game started with the Italian opening and then somehow I was threatening squares like D4 and D5. I was expecting my opponent to play D4 at some point but the D4 move never came and I used it to my advantage with D5.

Kartikey Kumar

"Although I was very low on time, I was making moves which would steer me to a draw. But then he pinned his Bishop to his Rook and I attacked the Bishop which could not be moved. He lost the Bishop and eventually lost," Karnav said whilst talking about the game. Veer Bopardikar of RN Podar finished in second place and Vedant Mistry of Fazlani L'Academie Global came third in the boys U-16 category.

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"The victory was unexpected. From the start, I was expecting to be in the top 10 but then the tables changed from Round 6 where I was the sole leader. I lost Round 7, but eventually I won the tournament and luck was on my side," added Karnav. In the U-8 boys category, Tattva Shejwal of Rustomjee Cambridge International emerged as runner-up and Viaan Shetty of GD Somani Memorial finished third.

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