GM Nihal Sarin defeated his compatriot GM Raunak Sadhwani to become the winner of the 2021 Junior Speed Chess Championship sponsored by ChessKid. Nihal beat Raunak 17.5 to 10.5 to clinch victory and qualify for the 2021 Speed Chess Championship.
Nihal started out as the top seed and justified his top billing with consistent performances throughout the event. He had monstrous scores right from his first match. Nihal's performance at the 2021 JSCC event:
Round of 16: Beat GM Nicolas Checa 20.5 to 7.5 Quarterfinal: Beat GM Amin Tabatabaei 23.5 to 4.5 Semi-Final: Beat GM Haik Martirosyan 20.5 to 9.5 Final: Beat GM Raunak Sadhwani 17.5 to 10.5
The Final:
Game one of the final started off with a draw and then saw both players win a couple of games. After that, game four of the match had commentator GM Robert Hess saying that this was one of the finest wins he has seen recently in any time control.
After 90 minutes in the 5+1 segment, The match was in fairly the balance as Nihal held a slender lead of 4.5 to 3.5 in this segment. Nihal's play had been much stronger in the bullet portion throughout this event, so any lead from the Blitz segments would be trouble for Raunak as we witnessed.
Up next was the 3+1 blitz segment for a total of 60 minutes. More often than not this segment gives good momentum for the players heading into the bullet portion at the end.
After nine tough and intense games, the players were tied with 4.5 points apiece in this segment.
The 30 minutes of 1+1 bullet chess had been Nihal's forte in all his previous JSCC matches this year and today was no different. Raunak who put up a fantastic fight until now was outplayed by Nihal. Nihal scored an impressive 8.5 points in the bullet portion to seal the victory and punch his ticket to the Main Speed Chess Championship.
The 2021 Chess.com Junior Speed Chess Championships was sponsored by ChessKid, the world's number-one site for kids to learn and play chess. Sixteen GMs younger than 21 years old played in a knockout format with 90 minutes of 5|1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3|1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1|1 bullet chess. In this second edition, there was a total prize fund of $35,000 on the line.
