Kshatriya and Vedant Vekhande become Candidate Master in Chess
Durvesh Yadav 
Kshatriya Vekhande becomes Candidate Master (CM) in Chess at age of 12 years and 9 months. While his elder brother Vedant become Candidate Master at age of 14 years.
Kshatriya has an International FIDE rating of 2224 at such young age. Kshatriya played 4 Open International Chess Tournaments in Spain during July and August. Kshatriya increased his Rating from 1782 to 2224 in this 4 Tournaments at Spain which helped him to get the Candidate Master Title in September.
At the same time his brother Vedant Vekhande also increased his Rating from 1731 to 2178 in same 4 Tournaments at Spain and he even won a Gold medal in Under 14 category at Badalona International Tournament, Spain in August 2022. In the same tournament he crossed the live rating of 2200 which helped him to earn Candidate Master (CM) Title. Both brothers won games against many players rated above 2000 and they were ahead of many Titled players in the final Rankings of these tournaments.
Kshatriya won Gold medal in National Under 12 Championship of last year. Also, In Beginning of 2020, Kshatriya had a draw with Grandmaster Visakh at Open National Teams when he was just 11 years old and in 2019 at age of 10 he won Rapid Open age Group Chess Tournament ahead of an International Master (IM) in Mumbai. Kshatriya also represented India in Under 12 Western Asian Championship in 2021, where he won Silver Medal in Individual Category and Gold Medal for Team India. His brother Vedant Vekhande was 5th in World Championship in Under 7 age group at Thailand in 2015. Vedant won a Bronze Medal at Under 13 National Schools in 2021 and Vedant also won State School Championship of his age category 3 times. Everything was looking good but during last 2 years both brothers were not able to play any Foreign Tournaments due to pandemic, thus they were waiting for this opportunity and now in International Tournaments at Spain both brothers displayed an amazing performance.
Kshatriya and his brother Vedant are learning Chess from Mr. Amit Panchal (Founder of Chess Guru Academy) since they were Beginners, now both Vedant and Kshatriya have become Candidate Master. Chess Guru Academy by Amit Panchal is considered to be one of the Top Chess Academy of India with amazing results. They have centres across Mumbai, they also provide Online Chess Coaching across India and many other foreign countries. According to Coach Amit Panchal, both Vekhande brothers may not have got any foreign exposure in last 2 years but we kept working hard on the game, also both brothers were winning against many Titled players in Online games, thus he was confident about their level and performance. The Key to Vedant and Kshatriya's success is their curiosity, willingness to learn more and hard work for the game.
