Veni vidi vici! Denis Dupuis won the battle of the Battersea juniors as he stormed to victory in the world’s largest chess competition’s U10 Terafinal.
Battersea’s England junior demolished the field with 9.5/10 in his Delancey UK Schools’ Chess Challenge section and beat clubmate CM Shreyas Royal twice in the process.
It was Denis’s second major tournament victory – and he picked up a winner’s cheque of £600 for his efforts.
The Delancey is a huge UK-wide event with more than 40,000 children entering this year from 1,200 schools.
The first stages began in the spring and having made his way through all the stages, Denis (1579 Fide) and Shreyas (1916) were up against a final 51 others in their section.
Tera-ffic in the Terafinal!
But while Denis and Shreyas faced some stiff competition, it was the clubmates who were vying for the title.
The pair were the front-runners throughout and met three times over the 10 rounds. The first stage, a Swiss, was on Saturday in which Denis scored 6/6.
The key game, however, was in round 5 when Denis, playing white, mated Shreyas after activating his king early.
To see the full game, and all the other rounds click here.
After that, the top four went through to a knockout stage on Sunday, while the rest continued to play the Swiss.
Both Denis and Shreyas, the world’s youngest CM, won through to the final, which became an all-Battersea affair.
The pair had a cagey 42-move draw with Shreyas as white. Then in the second game they played an almost identical game as in round 5, but with one important difference.
Shreyas blundered on move 17 and our hockey-playing youngster secured the title of 2019 Terafinal champ.
Denis, who lives locally, has been knocking on the door of a big win.
In December he became U10 London Junior Champion and last month he finished joint-third in the Under 10 section at the British Chess Championships in Torquay.
