Candidate Master Taffin Khan took the second game of the two-best-in-three playoff to defeat Loris Nathoo and claim the title of National Chess Champion 2023 on Wednesday evening at the Ocean Spray Hotel.
The game was of ten minutes duration and ended in 39 moves. Nathoo played black and countered a king pawn (e4) opening with the Caro-Kann Defence, wandering unconsciously into his opponent’s milieu. Khan is a specialist in the vagaries of the Caro-Kann on either the white or black side. I make this assessment because his father, David Khan, loved the Caro-Kann and played it often in competitions. The other two games, one of 15 minutes duration and the next at five minutes duration, ended in draws.