Chiu-Awatramani tandem tops WR Bughouse Championship

ISAAC CHIU and Janak Awatramani of Deep Waters showed they’re not world champions for nothing as they topped the inaugural WR Bughouse Championship at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in BGC, Taguig.

Messrs. Chiu and Awatramani, who have played with each other in the variance of the sport for six years now, pulled the rug from under The Angry Birds’ Grandmaster (GM) Andrew Tang and FIDE Master (FM) Richard Zheng in the deciding third match to crown themselves as champions.

In doing so, Deep Waters took $50,000, or half of the total pot worth $100,000, courtesy of organizing WR Chess founder Wadim Rosenstein.

It was the second crown for Messrs. Chiu and Awatramani, who reigned supreme in chess.com’s World Bughouse Championship last year.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Mr. Chiu, whose team topped the elimination round where they scored 11 straight victories before suffering their one and only loss in the last round.

In the playoffs, Messrs. Chiu and Awatramani were just unbreakable.

Two Philippine squads — Palaban’s GM Darwin Laylo and FM David Elorta, and Marc Nazario and Vince Angelo Medina — made the quarterfinals but couldn’t cash in on their chances and each crashed out and settled for $2,000 each. — Joey Villar