GM Nihal Sarin comfortably reached the final of the Junior Speed Chess Championship presented by ChessKid, after a 20.5-9.5 win over GM Haik Martirosyan on Monday. Sarin will be defending his 2020 title against the winner of GM Raunak Sadhwani vs. Parham Maghsoodloo, the other semifinal that will be played Thursday, October 7, at 8 a.m. Pacific/17:00 CEST.

All Junior Speed Chess Championship broadcasts are available on youtube.com/chess.

Displaying tactical sharpness through all formats, Sarin again scored more than 20 points in this match, while not allowing his opponent to reach 10. The young Indian had dominated his quarterfinal with GM Amin Tabatabaei even more (23.5-4.5) and although Martirosyan did better, the winner of this first semifinal was never really in doubt.

After a draw in the first game, Sarin took the lead with two wins in a row. The second of those was lucky, though:

In game six, fortune was on Sarin’s side as Martirosyan allowed a winning game to turn completely:

A bigger mishap is Martirosyan’s 25th move in game eight, something we expect to see in bullet but not in 5|1 chess:

Another nice example is from the 3|1 segment, where both players had two knights and a queen that led to tactics for both sides:

Sarin ended up winning all three segments: 5.5-3.5 in the 5|1 portion, 8-1 in the 3|1 portion, and 8-5 in the bullet. He won $1,500 plus $1,025 on win percentage, totalling $2,525, and moves on to the final. Martirosyan earned $975 on percentage.

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