By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Isaac Chiu and Janak Awatramani flexed their might after emerging as champions of the inaugural WR Bughouse Championship at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in BGC, Taguig on Tuesday, June 2.
The team named Deep Waters needed a third and final match to outlast The Angry Birds’ Grandmaster Andrew Tang and FIDE Master Richard Zheng to rule the two-day event and grab the top prize amounting to $50,000 (around P3 million), courtesy of WR Chess founder Wadim Rosenstein.
It was the second major title for Chiu and Awatramani, who have been playing side by side since 2020, after they won chess.com’s World Bughouse Championship a year ago.
“We’ve been at it as a team since 2020 and I’m happy we’ve won again,” said Awatramani.
Chiu and Awatramani capped what had been a strong performance after blazing their way to the top of the 12-round elimination where they strung together 11 straight wins that negated their last round defeat.
It also propelled the tandem to the Final 8 where it was just unstoppable.
Tang and Zheng consoled themselves with $20,000 (around P1.2 million)
In the battle for third, GM Awonder Liang, ranked 34th in the world, and Eilia Zomorrodian of Emmy as the Goat made quick work of Alex Guo and Jimmy Lee of Mate in 2 to snare $10,000 (around P600,000)
Two Filipino tandems — Palaban’s GM Darwin Laylo and FM David Elorta and Marc Nazario and Vince Angelo Medina — qualified in the quarters only to fall and settled for $2,000 apiece (around P120,000).
