GM Raunak Sadhwani on Saturday defeated IM Christopher Yoo in the first quarterfinal of the Junior Speed Chess Championship presented by ChessKid. The tournament is a knockout competition for top junior chess players with a $35,000 prize fund.

The next match in the round of 16 is GM Parham Maghsoodloo vs. GM Jeffery Xiong that will be played on Monday, August 2, at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.

The live broadcast of the match.

The Junior Speed Chess Championship resumes after a bit of a gap, as quite a few participants have been active in the FIDE World Cup and are currently in Biel. Sadhwani was playing from Biel on Saturday evening, but luckily for him, Sunday was a rest day there.

The first quarterfinal was a close affair with Sadhwani winning all three segments by just one point. The longest game, which was the last 5|1 game, saw a few interesting moments in a typical knight-vs.-bad-bishop endgame:

Another nice battle is the following, which was game 21 in the match and the last 3|1 before the bullet started:

Yoo earned $338.71 based on win percentage; Sadhwani won $750 for the victory plus $411.29 on percentage for a total of $1,161.29. He moves on to the semifinals where he will play the winner of the match Maghsoodloo vs. Xiong who battle on Monday, August 2, at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.

All games

The Chess.com 2021 Junior Speed Chess Championship is an online competition for top junior players. The qualifiers for the event were held June 7-21, while the main event runs July 1-August 8. Players battle for their shares of a total prize fund of $35,000 and a spot in the Speed Chess Championship later this year. More info here; live games here. 

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