On September 30th 2023, the first Tri-Bridges Chess Club All Girls Tournament occurred. A wide range of experienced players and beginners attended the event. We would like to give thanks to Kalyani Puranikmath and Samika Nettem for coming up with this idea in the first place and helping to organize the club space. A special thanks to Puranikmath’s mother for hanging most of the pictures as we now know not to trust Kalyani and Samika with hanging pictures or using hammers.
The Open section had seven players who all gave a tough fight. First place was earned by Pavana Rajeev who went 4-1, only drawing against Hannah Lu and her sister, Pallavi Rajeev, in an 8-move, all known theory, draw. Second place went to Kalyani Puranikmath, who also went 4-1, but had worse tie breaks since she lost to Pavana. Pallavi Rajeev went 3.5-1.5, winning third place. Kriti Sathyanath, Samika Nettem, and Hannah Lu all had 2.5 points, but Sathyanath edged out Nettem and Lu on tiebreaks, taking the Top Under 1000 trophy. Fourth place was Samika Nettem, who received a beautiful art piece made by Joshua Anderson’s wife, Brandy. Fifth place was Hannah Lu and she got the Top Under 950 trophy. Aadya Tati had a score of 1-5 and earned the Top Under 900 trophy. Between rounds, the Rajeev sisters, Samika Nettem, and Kalyani Puranikmath eagerly waited to get approval to go outside and apparently “criticize baseball” which was described as crazy by many people.
The Under 500 section was turned into a Round Robin with four out of the six players being unrated. Roshini Sadhu Venkata took first place with a score of 4-1. Despite being unrated, Claire Lu also earned a score of 4-1, only losing to Venkata to get second place. Third place was Tianyi(Zoey) Yang with 3.5-1.5. Aishika Madhwani, Shriya Chakravarthy, and Shrena Gandhe are all very new players who also participated in the event. We hope to have more players participate next time and we hope that the flowers will also grow back soon.
