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Abu Dhabi Masters: Nihal Sarin is India's latest GM!

15/08/2018 -

The penultimate round of the Abu Dhabi Masters witnessed a major turnaround on the top of the leaderboard. GM Anton Korobov managed to bring down the ever creative Hungarian GM Richard Rapport in a Queen's Indian Defence. But this was thoroughly overshadowed by a rather tepid game. IM Nihal Sarin had held IM Teymur Kuybokarov to an easy 21 move draw. But this was more important because, with this draw, the 14-year-old Sarin had scored his final GM norm and had become the country's 53rd Grandmaster! Another player on the hunt for a GM norm is the Telangana based IM Arjun Erigaisi. With a score of 5.0/8, Erigaisi needs a win in his final round game to clinch the norm. 

The ChessBase India Independence Day Sale!

14/08/2018 -

ChessBase India has been working day and night to popularize chess in India. It has brought a lot of products to the Indian chess market at discounted prices. But one product remains extremely close and special to our heart and that is the ChessBase India T-shirts! With a unique design that makes every Indian chess player proud, the T-shirts are the first products manufactured completely in India by us. This Independence Day we want you to be the proud owner of these T-shirts for absolutely no cost. Check out this amazing offer in which you can buy your favourite ChessBase and Quality Chess products that have been on your wishlist for a long time and get the ChessBase India T-shirts free of cost! 

La Liga football meets chess in Kochi

14/08/2018 -

Six top players of India took on Champions of Spain and Girona FC footballers part of Toyota Yaris La Liga World international preseason football tournament in Kochi between 25th and 28th July 2018. David Anton, Ivan Salgado, Miguel Santos, Sabrina Vega, Ana Matnadze and Marta Garcia were representing the Spanish team along with coach David Martinez. Indian team consisted of S L Narayanan, Abhimanyu Puranik, Diptayan Ghosh, Harshit Raja, Soumya Swaminathan and Kiran Manisha Mohanty with coach Vishal Sareen. The friendly camp took place in Kochi Marriott Hotel. Photo: LaLiga4Sports facebook

ACL 1st Super League 2018: MCA and DBCA are the finalists in Rating 1400-1800 category

14/08/2018 -

Matrix Chess Club of New Delhi and Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy of Kolkata, West Bengal are the finalists in ACL 1st Super League 2018 in Rating 1400-1800 category. Anirudh Jain of MCC and Souhardo Basak of DBCA were the spearheads as they scored two victories each in the semi-final matches. MCC won both of their semi-final matches against Innovators Chess Academy of Bengaluru, Karnataka with a score of 2.5-1.5 and 3-1 respectively. DBCA defeated Matrix Chess Academy in the first semi-final with 3-1 and drew the second one 2-2 to advance to the finals. They both will face each other on 18th August 2018 in a best of two match finals. Photo: MCC/Prasenjit Dutta and DBCA/Sayan Bose

Abu Dhabi Masters: Young Indians shine!

14/08/2018 -

With the finale drawing closer, Murali Karthikeyan and Aravindh Chithambaram scored two big upsets beating Vladimir Fedoseev and Martyn Kravtsiv respectively to take joint second spot on the leaderboard. The two are only half-a-point behind the leaders at 5.5/7. Nihal Sarin, while also being in contention for the title is also inching closer towards his final GM norm. In round 7, he drew effortlessly against Constantin Luplescu to come upto 5.0/7. Arjun Erigaisi also moved closer to his GM norm with a quick draw white against GM Amin Bassem. 

The boy who is in a hurry to become a GM - Arjun Kalyan

14/08/2018 -

Arjun Kalyan is a 16-year-old who hails from the chess capital of India - Chennai. The boy was somewhere in the 2300-2350 zone towards the end of 2017. He quickly scored two IM norms, studied for his 10th grade examinations, aced it with a score of 93%, came back to the chess board, scored his 3rd IM norm in Benasque Open 2018, became an IM and then as if all of this progress was not enough, he scored his maiden GM norm at the Biel Chess Festival 2018. Arjun's performance speaks for itself. But for us it was important to understand Arjun the chess player as well. For this we have four games annotated by the young lad himself. This article gives you all the information about this fastest growing 16-year-old in Indian chess right now! 

Caruana maintains lead in a day of typical Rapid heartbreaks

13/08/2018 -

An unpredictable day 2 at the Saint Louis! After becoming the first person to start any Grand Chess Tour rapid event with a perfect score Caruana drew all of his games on 2nd day at the Saint Louis to still lead the tourney with 9 points. There are four players with a score of 7 points that includes MVL, Mamedyarov, Karjakin and Nakamura. There were many pieces thrown everywhere in the three rounds and all of these exciting moments are analyzed in this report. IM V. Saravanan, who is present at the venue sends us a detailed report.

Abu Dhabi Masters R4-6 Four Indians in a tie for fourth

13/08/2018 -

Scoring two wins and a draw apiece in their last two games, Nihal Sarin and SL Narayanan have made it into the 16 way tie for fourth, after six rounds at the Abu Dhabi Masters. GM Murali Karthikeyan and Aravindh Chithambaram are also in this 16-player-group with a score of 4.5/6. Meanwhile, Anton Korobov and Daniil Dubov emerged as tournament leaders winning their sixth round games. Three rounds still remain to be played and with all players revving up their engine, the spectators have every reason to look forward to some thrills.  

Prithu Gupta - the boy who tops in class and scores GM norms with ease!

13/08/2018 -

Academics or chess is a question that grapples every talented youngster and his parents. The common answer has been to give education a backseat and focus on chess at least until you reach 10th grade. But here is a boy who is managing both. Well, managing would not be the right word - excelling at both! Meet Prithu Gupta, who has a Live Elo rating of 2460 and two GM norms and in his school almost always scores a CGPA of 10.0/10. How does the boy do it? How did he make his two GM norms by playing just four tournaments in 2018? How has the boy never lost to a 2600 opponent in his chess career till date? We answer all of these questions in this article and much more. Prithu sends us three annotated games as well that gives you a good insight about what's going on in his mind while he gives one fine performance after another.

ACL 1st Super League 2018: DCA and ICA are the finalists in Rating 1000-1400 category

12/08/2018 -

Dynamic Chess Academy of Rajkot, Gujarat and Innovators Chess Academy of Bengaluru, Karnataka are the finalists in ACL 1st Super League 2018 in Rating 1000-1400 category. Nimai Ponna of ICA woke up at 3 a.m. because he moved to USA recently but that did not stop him from playing for his team and making sure that they secure a spot in the finals. It was Shreyas Sashi Kumar of ICA who won the crucial tie-breaker against Kabir of Matrix Chess Academy to push ICA to the finals. DCA won their second semi-final match against Tattva Chess Academy Achievers convincingly. They will face each other on 18th August 2018 to fight for the title of best academy in Rating 1000-1400 category. Photo: ICA/Sushrutha Reddy

St. Louis Rapid Day 1: The glass of water crushes Redbull!

12/08/2018 -

Fabiano Caruana is showing why he is the worthy person to challenge the World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Fabi started off with three wins out of three games at the Saint Louis Rapid 2018. Among the casualties were Grischuk, Aronian and Mamedyarov. Vishy Anand had a mixed day at the office. He beat Hikaru Nakamura in game one, but lost to MVL in the second round. Vishy drew his third against Karjakin. There was a lot of interesting chess played in the day. One of them being Karjakin's thoroughly creative victory over Leinier Dominguez. In this day one report from Saint Louis, ChessBase India correspondent V. Saravanan sends you a detailed picture of what took place.

Curtain Raiser: Vishy Anand looking to improve his Grand Chess Tour standing

12/08/2018 -

We have the curtain raiser from Saint Louis sent to us by IM V. Saravanan who is present at the venue in USA to cover the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz and Sinquefield Cup 2018 for ChessBase India. Both Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz and Sinquefield Cup 2018 (Classical) are part of the Grand Chess Tour. Vishy's standing in the Grand Chess Tour hasn't really been very special. He is currently in the seventh position. But he has the chance to play some strong chess and improve his chances. First we will have the rapid, then the blitz followed by classical chess. Stay tuned for all the updates from this exciting event where most of the top players apart from Magnus Carlsen are in action.

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz & Sinquefield Cup 2018 LIVE!

11/08/2018 -

Vishy Anand, Aronian, Caruana, MVL, Wesley So, Nakamura, Mamedyarov, Grischuk, Karjakin are some of the top players playing at the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz 2018. After three days of rapid and two days of blitz, the action will shift to classical chess in the Sinquefield Cup 2018. The top four finishers at the Grand Chess Tour will fight it out for top honours in London later this year. Vishy Anand is in the seventh spot as of now. Will he be able to make that jump? Follow the games live on this page along with Live Commentary. Live games begin each day at 11.30 p.m. Indian Standard Time (IST)

ACL 1st Super League 2018: KCA and DCA are the finalists in Unrated category

11/08/2018 -

Kunte's Chess Academy of Pune, Maharashtra and Dynamic Chess Academy of Rajkot, Gujarat are the first two finalists in ACL 1st Super League 2018 in Unrated category. KCA defeated City Chess Club Bhuj after two draws and then winning the tie-breaker blitz match. DCA also had a similar start in the first match against d'pawn Chess Academy of Amravati, Maharashtra. They defeated their opponent dpCA 3-1 in the second semi-final to secure a spot in the final. They will collide against each other in a best of two match on 20th August 2018 to claim the bragging rights to be the best academy in Unrated category.

Game Theory helps Vaibhav Suri win the Biel Masters 2018

11/08/2018 -

The Biel Masters is a strong tournament with 26 grandmasters. The top seed was GM Pavel Eljanov (2706) and there were eight more grandmasters above the rating of 2600. GM Vaibhav Suri from Delhi was the 19th seed, but played a fantastic tournament to score 7.0/9 and win half a point ahead of the remaining competitors. And what was Vaibhav's secret of winning the tournament? The Game Theory which he learnt when he was majoring in Economics in his University! We tell you all about the game theory approach of Vaibhav. Apart from this we also have a game annotated by Vaibhav, a big interview by Rupali Mullick and also a huge pictorial report. Don't miss this exciting report from the Swiss town of Biel.