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A chat with the world's second youngest Grandmaster, R Praggnanandhaa

05/07/2018 -

India's beloved chess star, R Praggnanandhaa was recently coronated with the Grandmaster title at the Gredine Open in Italy. Besides scoring his final grandmaster norm with a round to spare, the little champ also finished joint first in the tournament alongside GM Ivan Saric. But this success came after a dismal finish at the Schaakweek Apeldoorn where he had finished at the bottom of the leaderboard. In this interview, he tells how he remains confident despite setbacks, his meet with Vishy Anand and his love for sambhar and rice over pizza. | Photo: Arun Sekhar

16 Commonwealth Champions will be decided today!

03/07/2018 -

A lot is at stake in the final round of the Commonwealth Championships 2018. We will have two Champions in the open section - the open winner and women's top player. Apart from this we have 14 age categories! In all 48 medals are at stake. Last rounds are always very stressful. Only one player has successfully confirmed her gold medal and that's Tejaswini Sagar in the under-18 girls section. In this report we bring you all the action from the penultimate round. Apart from that we also have impressions from the Jacob Aagaard lecture that was held on the 2nd of July, absolutely free of cost for all the participants. Photos by Amruta Mokal, write up and videos by Sagar Shah.

Videos and Photos from Commonwealth Championship 2018

02/07/2018 -

Sagar Shah is moving around the tournament with his tangled wired microphone and Samsung Note 8. Amruta Mokal is moving around the playing venue with her Canon 1200D and Sony A7M2. Both of them are generating tremendous amounts of high quality content in videos and photos which are a pleasure to the eyes as well as food for thought for your brain. In this article we will skip the traditional method of our reports with games and analysis and bring you some of the photos and videos captured on the seventh day of this championship! 

And we are off! The 1st Super League of ACL begins!

02/07/2018 -

For the first time in the history of Indian Chess, over 50 teams from various academies across India and players from five different countries, Colombo, Oman, Sri Lanka, USA and India are taking part in an online team chess championship. The tournament started off on 1st July 2018 with four matches, one match from each of the rating category. Dynamic Chess Academy, d'pawn Chess Academy, Matrix Chess Academy and PKCCE were the victorious teams on day 1 of round 1 of Academy Chess League's - 1st Super League 2018. Let's take a look at what exactly happened on the very first day of this unique initiative.

Commonwealth 2018 Round 5+6: Sankalp Gupta's phenomenal run

01/07/2018 -

Double rounds speed up the nature of the tournament in a big way. Here we were at the end of round 4, and after twelve hours six rounds had been completed and two thirds of the tournament has come to an end! Three players are doing exceedingly well. As expected GM Vaibhav Suri is in the lead with 5.5/6. But he is joined by two surprising candidates. One is G. Akash who is making a return to chess after a gap of two years and the other is Sankalp Gupta from Nagpur who is having the tournament of his life! We bring you the complete report with games, interviews and much more.

2727, world number 27 at 26!

30/06/2018 -

Chess improvement is difficult. That's the bitter truth. People stagnate all the time and sometimes for many many years! How does one breakthrough this dry patch. How does one have the right attitude to power through the tough times so that they can see the greener pastures. On 2nd of July Jacob Aagaard, the coach of Indian women's national team, will be at the venue of the Commonwealth Championships 2018 to deliver two lectures on how Sam Shankland took the world of chess by storm by winning three major events and pumping up his rating from 2671 to 2727. Don't miss out on this lecture - the entry is absolutely free.

Who put the "Indian" in Indian Openings?

30/06/2018 -

Why, after all, are the Indian openings called "Indian"? Conrad Schormann tried to find an answer to this question and found it in the ChessBase Mega Database. It led him back to a clash of classical and hypermodern theory in old India.

Commonwealth 2018 Round 4: The path to gold is not easy!

30/06/2018 -

There are 14 age group sections being played simultaneously with the open event in the Commonwealth Championships 2018. These age category tournaments have reached their most interesting stage because they are just seven round events. In many of the sections, the top seeds clashed against each other. In many the best players are going to play against each other after the rest day. We bring you the detailed coverage of all the sections with some vibrant pictures by Amruta Mokal. In the Open section S.Nitin leads with 4.0/4 and is the sole leader. Saturday is a rest day for the juniors and a double round for players in the open section.

Commonwealth 2018 Round 3: The fall and rise of Meghna CH

29/06/2018 -

Chess players need to be mentally strong. That's the only way in which they can succeed. A brilliant case of this was showcased at the Commonwealth Championships 2018. Meghna CH is a 19-year-old player from Kerala. She came to Delhi with big hopes of winning a medal in the under-20 section. However, in the 2nd round she lost to higher rated Sakshi Chitlange and in the third round she was beaten by her state mate Abdeen Asna who was rated 1162! Nothing could have been worse for Meghna. But she turned things around in style. Check out this article to know how she did it.

Play chess in 'The land of the Gazelle', Abu Dhabi

28/06/2018 -

The Abu Dhabi Chess Festival is just around the corner and its premier event, the Masters' Tournament, features an exciting list of players. Some of the bigwigs include Richard Rapport, Alexander Morozevich, Anton Korobov and Vladimir Fedoseev. With such a strong field, the tournament offers an ideal opportunity for aspiring masters to earn norms or gain rating points.  

Luxshana - a budding talent from Coimbatore

28/06/2018 -

Chess is among the very few sports or mental activities where a child can compete with an adult on equal ground and the term "Prodigy" is not uncommon. For the past few years, India is has been creating chess prodigies relentlessly. In this article we meet Luxshana, a child prodigy from the city of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu who has secured a slew of medal's and achievements in the field of chess. And at this tender age she has something very special - support from her school Park Global School at an unprecedented level!

Commonwealth 2018 Round 2: The 2-hour report for chess improvement!

28/06/2018 -

Chess reports are filled with news and updates, but this round two report from Commonwealth 2018 is different. It is filled with high level of instructional content. IM Sagar Shah, the author of this report, says, "To go through this entire report will take two hours of your time. But if you do it carefully, it is bound to teach you a lot about chess." We have video analysis by GM Pravin Thipsay, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy teaches you the intricacies of calculation and IM P. Karthikeyan shows you how deep you can go in any position. This is a report with a difference and to add more flavour to it, you have some world class photography by Amruta Mokal.

Commonwealth 2018 Round 1: Tania Sachdev's huge blunder

27/06/2018 -

What a great gathering of chess players we have at the Leela Ambience Hotel in Delhi. The Commonwealth Chess Championships 2018 kicked off from the 26th of June 2018. A record number of players are taking part in this event. In the mornings you have the age category events, while in the afternoon, the open section begins. Most of the top seeds sailed through, with the exception of the strongest female player in the tournament - Tania Sachdev. In a completely winning position she blundered in a big way and gifted the full point to the opponent. We have a huge report with some excellent pictures by Amruta Mokal. 

India's terrific trio at the 18th IPCA Championships in Prague

26/06/2018 -

Indian chess has some brilliant chess players up its fold, right from five-time reigning World Champion to the 12-year-old second youngest GM in the world R. Praggnanandhaa. But today we are going to look at three of our champions who have braved all sorts of odds to come out victorious on the chess board. They playing chess shows not only how great the sport of chess is, but also what gritty, determined and courageous individuals they are. We are talking about the terrific trio of IM Shashikant Kutwal, WIM Jennitha Anto and Samarth Rao who are representing our country at the 18th IPCA World Championships currently taking place in Prague. 

GCT Paris Day 4+5: Nakamura bags the title!

25/06/2018 -

The blitz leg of the Paris Grand Chess ended in the most exciting manner one could have imagined. Wesley So led the event after the blitz, Sergey Karjakin took over after the first day of the blitz, but neither of them won the tournament! It was GM Hikaru Nakamura, who had always been lurking around the winners, who took the title prize scoring four wins on the final day. Indian ace, Viswanathan Anand, finished with a lukewarm sixth place with a combined score (rapid + blitz) of 17/36.