Battersea has a new blitz champion – 14-year-old FIDE Master Batsukh Anand.
The junior who plays under the Mongolian flag claimed victory with a storming performance in Tuesday’s 9-round Battersea Christmas Blitz tournament.
But it was a close-run thing.
Anand scored 8/9 winning his first game against the 1652-rated Greg Taylor. It proved crucial as Greg then went on a crazy run winning his next eight games.
Anand, meanwhile, only dropped one point against Battersea’s former winner Midhun Unnikrishnan. In the end, Anand edged Greg, rated 500 points lower, on the head-to-head tiebreaker.
It was a thrilling night of speed chess. Until Round 6, Anand was the red-hot favourite with Midhun and Battersea returnee Stuart Robertson in the mix but trailing.
Then Midhun beat Anand and took over the lead. In Round 7, Stuart also dropped a point to the dark horse Greg and Midhun looked clear.
But Greg again belied his low rating as he beat Midhun to hand the initiative back to Anand.
The youngster then polished off Caglar Meric in the final round to take the title while Greg kept up his incredible night with a win over Malcolm Dancy.
Congratulations to Anand who was a deserved winner. But also a huge congratulations and thanks must go to new member James Toon who organised the event.
A total of 25 people entered this 9-round Swiss with an average rating was 1700.
The final table and all details are on the Chess Results server here. The results have been submitted for ECF Blitz rating and will appear in the January rating list.
