Awatramani Beats Vazquez 3-0 for a Second Crazyhouse Title

Canadian NM Janak Awatramani beat GM Guillermo Vazquez 3-0 in the Grand Final to win the 2026 Chess.com Crazyhouse Championship on November 6. It is his second title in the event, following 2024.

The result is less surprising than a national master beating the only grandmaster in the field might suggest. Commentator GM Yasser Seirawan has called Crazyhouse “Bughouse for one player”, and Awatramani has won the last two Bughouse championships as well.

How the final went

It was one-sided. Awatramani beat Vazquez in 19 moves in game one, then was on top for almost all of game two before delivering mate in four.

Game three, a must-win for Vazquez, had some swings. Awatramani still held the advantage for most of it and finished it off, a reminder of how deceptive the material on the board can be in Crazyhouse.

The Chiu match

Awatramani’s partner in those Bughouse wins, NM Isaac Chiu, was the defending champion, having taken the Crazyhouse title in 2025. Awatramani beat him 3-1 in the Winners Final.

Chiu’s win was perhaps the most memorable game of the match. With four rooks on the board, Black should have been winning easily, but one mistake allowed a smothered mate.

Chiu then met Vazquez in a hard-fought match. Vazquez took the lead twice, the second time because Chiu had mate in five but could not move in 0.9 seconds against his opponent’s single second. Chiu hit back both times and lost only in the bullet decider.

Scares along the way

Awatramani’s toughest match came against FM Roee Aroesti (Crazy_Eight) in the Winners Semifinals. He lost game one from a completely winning position: he needed to drop a piece on f3 to stop Black doing the same, grabbed a rook on c8 instead, and disaster followed.

He won the next two games, lost again, then won the bullet decider with White.

Elsewhere, Chiu came back from 2-0 down against Justin Tan in the Quarterfinals, winning the next two games and then the bullet decider. Tan, the “JannLee” widely regarded as the game’s “first world champion”, fought on through the Losers bracket.

He beat Brendan Cater 3-0 but lost 3-2 to Aroesti. In that bullet decider Tan had mate in two with under two seconds left and missed it: taking the bishop on d4 with check, then dropping it on a4 for mate.

Format and what’s next

Eight arena qualifiers (75 minutes, 3+0) fed an eight-player double-elimination bracket with best-of-four matches at 3+0. IM Mark Plotkin posted the highest winning score, 123 points, while Tan qualified with the lowest, 60.

GM Awonder Liang qualified but could not play the Finals, so his place went to Cater, third in that arena, because second-placed Vazquez had already qualified by winning the next one.

Awatramani took the $750 top prize from a $2,500 fund. The top three also received 3D-printed Crazyhouse pieces from NM Sam Copeland that change color when flipped.

This was the 11th event of the 2026 Community Championship series. The last of the year is the Fog Of War Championship on December 17-18.