Joseph Atwoli wins Invitational Terrian Rapid Chess Challenge
Joseph Atwoli won the 2nd edition of the Invitational Terrian Rapid Chess Challenge held last Sunday. The venue was the beautiful Originelle Restaurant – NSSF Building, Nairobi. Twelve top players in the country competed in a single round-robin format that saw them face each other over 11 rounds.
The Stima Chess Club maestro garnered 8.5 points to pocket KES 30,000, after halting runaway leader Mehul Gohil in round nine. Joseph Atwoli has now won four events this year! These include BYOB2, Masaku Open and the Njaanuary Chess Championship.
Mehul Gohil then seemed to have lost hope after this and suffered two successive defeats to Jackson Ndegwa and Steve Ouma.
Despite these three losses, Mehul consolidated the 7.5 points that guaranteed him a second spot with KES 20,000.
Joseph Methu, with seven points, was third and went home with KES 10,000.
Matthew Kanegeni was the top seed at 2119 but ended up in 11th position.
The event was probably the toughest Rapid Chess event held in Kenya over the past few years. The average rating of the participants was Elo 2016, which is a Kenyan record.
Terrian Chess Academy was the organisers who provided live transmission of the games as well. They again proved that they are one of the country’s top organisers with this exceptional event. Ben Nguku the 2016 Kenya Open Champion was the sole sponsor of the tournament.
Joseph Atwoli versus Mehul Gohil
Links
Standings & Results of Terrian Invitational Rapid Chess Challenge.