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The most popular event in Europe for Indian players - Sunway Sitges Chess Festival

18/11/2019 -

Which is the most popular European event for Indian players? Is it the Gibraltar Masters? Is it the Aeroflot Open? Is it the Grenke Chess Classic? While all of these tournaments are popular and are frequently visited by many Indians, there is one event which takes the cake. Situated in one of the most picturesque locations in Europe, on the Mediterranean sea coast, the Sunway Sitges Chess Festival is an event you cannot afford to miss. Into its sixth year, the tournament will take place from 13-22nd December 2019 and will see as many as 75 Indians taking part in the A-group out of the 240 registered players! And it's not just about quantity! We also have high quality players including Sasikiran, Sethuraman, Karthikeyan, Nihal Sarin, Praggnanadhaa and many others. Why is this tournament so popular among Indians? We try to find out!

ChessBase 18 and Mega 2025 are here

ChessBase 18 is an all-new program that helps you manage all your databases as an ambitious player. Mega Database 2025 has 11 million games with over 113,000 games annotated by masters. The cost of ChessBase 18 is Rs.4499/- and the cost of Mega Database 2025 is Rs.6499/- However, if you go for the combo the total amount comes to Rs.8999 (instead of 10,998/-) helping you save Rs. 1999/-.

ChessBase 18 + Mega 2025 Combo

Mikhail Tal and the Art of 'Ghost Creation'

18/11/2019 -

13-year-old IM Aditya Mittal of Mumbai, Maharashtra discusses 'The Magician of Riga' Mikhail Tal's brilliant game against Aleksandrs Koblencs. It was played in Riga 1957. Aditya carefully annotates all brilliant ideas and intricacies of Tal's moves. He also explains how he sometimes went for aesthetically pleasing moves and ideas instead of the most immediate and direct wins. It's a pleasure to read about one of the greatest attackers that chess has ever seen through the prism one of the biggest talents of Indian chess! The young IM exclaims the fact that Tal almost always had the perfect intuition and imagination, which allowed him to play fearlessly. Check out the comprehensive annotated game of Tal by Aditya Mittal | Photo: Pinterest

AICF Gujarat WGM: Aakanksha and Mrudul leads

17/11/2019 -

Aakanksha Hagawane and Mrudul Dehankar lead the ongoing AICF International Women Grandmaster Round Robin tournament after the completion of its penultimate round today. While Mrudul has suffered defeats in the first and eighth rounds of the event, Aakanksha has actually managed to remain unbeaten with four victories and six draws. Thus, even though both players have bagged 7.0/10 points each so far, it is the latter who stands ahead in terms of tie-break scores. Phuong Hanh Luong of Vietnam follows the leaders closely just half a point behind with 6.5/10 and going into the final round will also be looking to grab one of the top places. On the other hand, the Ukrainian WIM Olga Babiy, who started off the tournament with three consecutive powerful victories, has slipped down the rank-list and now shares the fourth place jointly with Nguyen Thi Mai Hung.  

Rutuja Bakshi creates history by winning Maharashtra State Open 2019

16/11/2019 -

Rutuja Bakshi created history on 12th November 2019 by becoming the first woman in her state to win Maharashtra State Open Selection. She won this exactly a week after winning Aurangabad District Open. Earlier this year she had won State Women's, Gold in Commonwealth under-20, Silver and Bronze at Western Asia Youth and Junior. She is also pursuing CA and balancing her chess quite well. We reported earlier this year that Sonakshi Rathore won Rajasthan State Senior for a record third time. Rutuja joins the elite list of women who have won a State Senior Open. In this article we get to know about Rutuja's triumph, her best game of the year and also hear from her coach Sajandas Joshi. Photo: Joseph D'souza / PDCA chess

Can 57-year-old D.V. Prasad become India's 66th GM?

16/11/2019 -

With the Indian players who achieve the GM title getting younger by the day, it is a good question to ask - how old will India's next GM be? Will he be 12 years old like Gukesh or Pragg, 13 years old like Negi or Raunak, or 14 years old like Nihal Sarin? It could well be that India may get its next GM in a week's time and his age would 57! Yes, you read that right! IM D.V. Prasad is playing at the World Senior (+50 years) Championships 2019 in Romania and is currently in the joint second position with 3.5/4. If Prasad wins this championship he directly gets the GM title and would become India's 66th GM. Of course, the road to GM title won't be easy as Prasad is competing with 20 other GMs and is the 40th seed. But he has made a powerful start by beating a former World senior champion in 26 moves. 

IIFL Wealth Chess 5 - It cannot get bigger than this!

16/11/2019 -

This new year, if you are a chess player, you have to celebrate it in Mumbai! The IIFL Wealth Chess is back. This time it's the fifth edition and it is bigger and better than ever before. The total prize fund of all the events combined is Rs.50 lakh! For the first time in many years we will witness a GM Open in India with a rating cut off of 2250 and above! In the under-13 Juniors section, the winner will take back home a whopping prize fund of Rs.2,50,000. There is also a Masters Open (2250 and below) and a Challengers Open (2150 and below). Finally we have a blitz event open for all with a prize fund of Rs.2 lakh. In this article you will get all the information about this mega event!

Talent Test with GM Raunak Sadhwani

15/11/2019 -

ChessBase India's talent tests are enjoyed by one and all. What we usually do is subject a talented youngster of Indian chess to a selection of chess positions ranging from easy to tough and try to see how they crack these problems. This time our guest was India's latest GM, 13-year-old Raunak Sadhwani. Raunak was given 13 positions to solve. He was super quick at most of them, while some did give him trouble. Yet, finishing the entire set in 50 minutes is quite commendable. In this article we bring you all the 13 positions, and ask you to solve them, just like Raunak did with a timer, and then go through the video to see how you fared in the test as compared to one of the biggest talents of Indian chess! Also as an added bonus in this article we have Raunak's mother Heena speak about how she uses ChessBase softwares to help her son get better at chess.

Coach Priyadharshan Kannappan speaks about India's campaign at the World Youth Under-16 Olympiad

15/11/2019 -

Team India started off as the nineteenth seed at the World Youth under-16 Chess Olympiad but made a commendable seventh-place finish winning against Turkey-White and Serbia in the last two rounds of the event. From starting with emphatic victories in the initial rounds to suffering a heartbreaking 4-0 loss against Belarus, the Indian team went through a lot of ups and downs throughout the tournament. Grandmaster Priyadharshan Kannappan, who was the accompanying coach cum captain, speaks at length about it all. He shares his overall experience of the event, his impression of the players, his thoughts about the team selection this year, and much more. Read this detailed article and get to know what it feels like to compete in one of world's most prestigious team championships. 

The Telegraph Schools' Chess invites all school students

14/11/2019 -

28th edition of The Telegraph Schools' Chess in Kolkata, West Bengal is just less than a month away. The longest running school level chess tournament in the country will have its 28th edition start on 13th December 2019. The tournament which has witnessed the participation of the country's many top players in their budding years who eventually went on to become World beaters, open its doors once again to all chess players all over the country. The tournament holds a total prize fund of ₹155000 and the bragging rights for the Best School of the tournament which can be won by any school. The last two champions Srijit Paul and Mitrabha Guha went on to become to IMs. Who will be the next winner? Registration is live now

New products available in ChessBase India shop

14/11/2019 -

Fritz 17 is world's longest lasting chess program series. It's out now with Fat Fritz - neural network engine. It also comes with new and improved Fritz 17 engine along with myriad of new features which we have already mentioned before. Mega Database 2020 is also out which has more than 8 Million games, including over 85000 annotated games and 250000 more games will be added through update in 2020. Correspondence Database 2020 and Fritz Powerbook 2020 is also available. Former World Championship Challenger Fabiano Caruana has released a dvd on Ruy Lopez and Simon Williams 'Ginger GM' has released the updated London System in London System Reloaded. Find out all details about the new ChessBase products available now.

Children's Day: Today, All Day, Everyday!

14/11/2019 -

"We are the children. we are the versed, we are the pioneers that will shape this world!", writes ChessBase India Juniors editor-in-chief Avathanshu Bhat. This Children's Day, ChessBase India has a poem for you about the young talents of this country that are pivotal to the chess community! Entitled the "Children of Caissa", the poem speaks about 12 talents who have shown unbelievable skills at chess in spite of being just 12,13,14, or 15. Each one of them has either grabbed the prestigious GM or the IM/WIM title! Apart from the poem, we also have a special contest at the end, where you need to find out names of all the titled players in the picture! The winner will be awarded membership to ChessBase India Elite Pass. Read on to find out!

Six Indians in the hunt for norms at AICF Gujarat WGM Tournament

13/11/2019 -

The AICF International Women Grand Master Round Robin Chess Tournament 2019 is taking place from the 11th to 18th of November in the Navrangpura sports club near Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad. Organized by the Gujarat Chess Association under the auspices of All India Chess Federation, the event features six Indian and six International players in all. A total of Rs.10 Lakh has been instated as the prize fund and moreover this is a lucrative norm making opportunity for all the participants. Four rounds of the tournament are already over. In this report we bring you the current standings, photos, games, and much more.

Girish Koushik dominates field to retain SDM Roto Lawyer's Cup

13/11/2019 -

After a rather long gap of 3 years, the holy town of Belthangady came back with the SDM Roto Lawyer's Cup 2019. With an attractive prize fund of Rs.4 Lakhs, the tournament attracted around 140 players from 16 states. GM Girish Koushik, the 2nd seed, played a superlative tournament, remaining unbeaten and taking 1st with a score of 7.5/9. IM Chakravarthy Reddy tied with Girish for 1st, but since the former had won their encounter he had to settle for runner up. 18th seed Swaraj Palit had a dream tournament to finish 3rd, while top seed Vishnu Prasanna had a forgettable event. A detailed report by Major Gen (Rtd) MV Bhat.

Pablo Glavina is the winner of IX Open Ciudad de Alfaro

13/11/2019 -

Top seed of the tournament IM Pablo Glavina scored an unbeaten 6.0/7 to win the tournament for the first time since 2016. Untitled Andres Malon Insausti also scored 6.0/7, he was placed second according to the tie-break score. IM Rufino Camarena of Valencia, scored 5.5/7 to claim the third position. The champion's trophy is designed in the form of 'Stork' which is the main symbol of the city Alfaro in Spain. Total 115 players from 40 different clubs and fifteen regions of Spain, including four different countries Colombia, Germany, Guatemala and Spain participated in this tournament. Photo: Miguel Angel Felipo / Club Ajedrez Alfaro

Russia will be the hotbed for chess in 2020

13/11/2019 -

The year 2020 will be an exciting one for chess and Russia will be the hotbed for some of the most important events. As early as March 2020 we have the Candidates tournament which will be an 8-player double round robin event to determine the challenger to World Champion Magnus Carlsen. This will be held in the fourth largest city in Russia - Yekaterinberg. During July-August 2020, we will witness not just the Chess Olympiad in Moscow, but also for the 1st time in the history - a Chess Paralympiad. The Chess Paralympiad in Khanty Mansiysk will be held from 29th July to 4th August, while the Olympiad will be in Moscow from 5th to 17th of August. We bring you all the details along with the probable players who have qualified for the Candidates 2020.

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