The dark knight of IIFLW under-13 - Kashish Jain

When the IIFLW Juniors (under-13) began, everyone thought that D. Gukesh would be the favourite to win the title. The boy had a published rating of 2466 (and two GM norms). His live rating before the event was 2497. By winning the first two rounds in the IIFLW Juniors and the first round in the IIFLW open, he even crossed the live rating of 2500! Also, Gukesh was the defending champion, so all the cards seemed to be in his favour for winning the tournament. He began with 4.0/4 and in the fifth round was paired against Kashish Jain.

Kashish opened the game with 1.Nf3 and kept making solid and strong moves. He had an ideal English setup with queenside pressure. In the middlegame both players manoeuvered their pieces around, and in such a situation it is usually the higher rated player who comes out on top. But in this particular case Kashish held his own in great style. He made no mistakes and Gukesh was the first one to blink. It was all that the Pune lad needed. He finished off his strong opponent in great style. Have a look at the game and be amazed by Kashish's masterful play.

In the fourth round Kashish had beaten V. Pranav, another big talent from our country. Let's have a look as to how that game went.

Pranav V - Kashish Jain

"Kashish is a very hard working player and his strength lies in calculation," says IM Shashikant Kutwal, who has been Kashish's coach for over three years now. "Kashish had always shown great promise, but the intensity of his work has increased in the last few months and the results are now showing. I must add that one of the major ingredients of Kashish's success is the support of his parents. They are single-mindedly dedicated towards their son making it big in the world of chess," adds Shashikant.

Another key factor in the rise of Kashish's performance is the support offered by his school - Greenwoods School in Hadapsar. The boy only attends school for one day a week. The rest of the days are spent in practicing chess. Greenwoods school supports not just Kashish but a few more players who are promising and working hard in different sports.

In the sixth round Kashish takes on Aaryan Varshney and this will be a great game to follow.

Live games begin at 9.30 a.m. IST and can be followed here

Standings after round 5:

Above 2100+ GM section:

Let's have a look at Sandipan's fifth round win over Ziaur Rahman. I particularly liked how he increased the speed of his play in middlegame with the move c6!

Tran Tuan Minh is the other joint leader of the event along with Sandipan Chanda on 4.5/5. He recently won the Bhopal GM Open 2018 and is currently the man to beat. In the fifth round he showed some fine tactical skills to beat Nubairshah Shaikh.

Nubairshah Shaikh vs Tran Tuan Minh

...Nxe3! was played by Minh. The idea is that if you recapture fxe3, then ...Qg5! is extremely strong, attacking the pawn on e3 as well as g2. White didn't go for it, but was already a pawn down and soon lost the game.

The finish of Saurabh Anand's game against Kidambi is quite nice:

Standings after round 5

Live games begin at 3.30 p.m. IST. Watch them live here

Best Photos by Vijay Mahajan

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