Check this out Mate

While the HRD ministry made Vishwanathan Anand wait for his honorary PhD, we saw our very own Roshan Jha winning the IIM Rohtak Chess tournament with quite the same finesse as the master himself.

A total of 16 warriors locked their horns on the virtual battle field. The Chess tournament kicked off with two contrasting matches. At one end, Ashutosh played his aggressive game denying Vivek any opportunity to recover, leading to brutal killing on the chess board with almost the whole board cleaned up. At the other end, Prateek played a thoughtful game beating Priyabratha purely on strategic moves. Romesh used his mind games to get rid of his opponent, Kushal, in round 1.Roshan provided the spark by striking out Ankush Jain in three straight moves announcing his arrival.

Start round two, Ashutosh's "killer instinct" triumphed over Prateek's strategy-an indication that no matter how good your strategies might be, they are not a shield against everything. Ankush Garg fought till his last breath despite losing his Queen early in the match against Roshan. Romesh's mind games did not quite work here- Dheeraj pulling him into a draw. However, Dheeraj couldn't survive Romesh's moves in the re-match held and was knocked out of the tournament.

Come semi-finals, Ashutosh yet again showed that first draw of blood can make your opponent falter-that is what happened Romesh. After walking over Akshay and Thani, Kaustubh had a real tough match against Roshan- second draw of the tournament. It was quite an interesting battle between the "Marathi manoos" and the "Jharkhandi" in the sense that it lacked political ambitions and was friendly after all. Played at a neutral venue, the "Jharkhandi" survived this war (is MNS listening?).    

Roshan, our portable calculator, used his analytical ability well enough to predict Ashutosh's moves correctly and defeat him convincingly in the finale. As expected, some of us still wonder, "Why do grownups like fighting with bishops, knights and likes on a chequered floor, that too without weapons?”- Courtesy Amit Bansal (organizer of the tournament). 

Mrudul Kotia
IIM Rohtak