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The super couple of chess Niklesh and Angela will head ChessBase India's Group Tour to Sharjah and Dubai

05/03/2019 -

The Sharjah and Dubai Masters 2019 is coming up. Two strong tournaments with some of the strongest grandmasters in the world playing at the UAE. ChessBase India in accordance with its motto of "Powering chess in India" is going to UAE with a Group Tour. The manager of the group tour would be Niklesh Jain. This is the second ChessBase India Power Group Tour. The first one to Barcelona, Spain was very successful with all the players cumulatively gaining 4359 Elo points! This time we are going to Sharjah from the 21st to 30th of March and to Dubai from the 1st to 10th of April 2019. The idea of the Group Tour is to give exposure to the youngsters so that they can travel to tournaments without their parents and guardians, thereby making them more capable individuals. Not to forget, it is extremely cost effective! 

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

Inspired team India will fight the big guns at the World Team Championships 2019 that begins from today

05/03/2019 -

The World Team Championships 2019 begin from today (5th of March 2019 at 2.30 p.m. IST). India takes on Sweden in the men's section while the women's team is up against Georgia. The nice thing about both men's and women's team for India is that we a nice mixture of youth and experience. Ganguly and Sasikiran have years of experience coming with them while in women's section the weight will fall on Soumya, Eesha and Tania's shoulders. Adhiban, Sethuraman and Aravindh will provide the firepower, while it will be exciting to see if Padmini and Bhakti can continue their excellent form that they are in. We bring you round one pairings and also a caption contest to win a special prize!

Rohan Joshi shares his experience of winning the first tournament he played outside India

04/03/2019 -

25-year-old Rohan Joshi is a chess player from Pune with a rating of 1789. He always dreamed of playing outside the country representing the Indian flag. Studies, finances and many other reasons stopped him from playing international events. However, in February 2019 he decided to play two tournaments in Lienz and Graz in Austria. The initial nervousness of playing in a new environment was quickly converted into the determination of achieving what he was capable of. Rohan played a fantastic tournament in the B-group of Lienz Open 2019 and became a champion with 7.5/9. It was his first trip outside India and he won the tournament. How did he do it? In this article Rohan shares his experience. 

IM Al Muthaiah wins 3rd Shaastra Rapid Rating

02/03/2019 -

IM Al Muthaiah scored a mammoth 9.5/10 to win 3rd Shaastra Rapid Rating. Muthaiah finished ahead of two GMs and nine other IMs. His only draw was against the 12-year old budding talent of Tamil Nadu, Pranesh M who finished at the 2nd position with a score of 9.0/10. K Senthil Maran secured 3rd position scoring 8.5/10. Defending champion and top seed GM Deepan Chakkravarthy scored 8.0/10 and he was placed 8th. Second seed of the tournament GM Laxman R R was adjudged 4th due to a lesser tie-break score than Senthil. The two day rapid rating tournament organized by IIT Madras witnessed the participation of 434 players including 2 GMs, 10 IMs and a WGM. Prof. IA R Anantharam brings you photos and annotated games by the players themselves.

The 28-minute test with IM Arjun Kalyan

02/03/2019 -

Born in 2002, Arjun is just 16 years old. He already is an IM with two GM norms and has an Elo of 2444. He scored his first GM norm at the Biel Masters 2018 and followed it up with his second GM norm at the Roquetas De Mar. Arjun's second GM norm was a phenomenal display of chess where he faced extremely strong players like Shirov, Svetushkin, Maiorov, Frolyanov and others and remained unbeaten. He sent us two of his games from the tournament - wins over Kantor Gergely (2514) and Nikita Maiorov (2524) and we have used that material for a 28 minute test of six positions. Think over the positions carefully, write down your answers and after 28 minutes, compare them with Arjun's notes! This is a sure shot way to become a better player!

Five norms for Indians at the Aeroflot Open 2019

01/03/2019 -

The Indian contingent performed admirably at the Aeroflot Open 2019. Sasikiran very narrowly missed winning the A-tournament and finished third - a commendable performance. Five Indian youngsters made their norms - Raunak Sadhwani achieved his maiden GM norm, Divya Deshmukh got her second WGM norm and Aditya Mittal, Koustav Chatterjee and Sammed Shete achieved their IM norms. Aditya Mittal is now an IM at the age of just 12 years. For Sammed and Koustav this was their second IM norm. In this report we give you all the information about the Indians who performed admirably and also tell you about the surprise winner of the A-group Kaido Kulaots, who has booked his spot to the Dortmund super tournament 2019.

Review: Extreme Calculation Training

28/02/2019 -

In order to keep our chess brains sharp, we need to practice a wide variety of calculation exercises. Although many are looking for a way to become titled players without doing much effort, the only true path to reach master-level strength involves solving endless exercises. DAVIDE NASTASIO takes a look at the latest work by Robert Ris, which includes exercises that clearly mimic the positions we can find in tournament games. The video series takes us into the depth of calculation, showing once and again why we must not stop at the surface, but dig deep under!

15 days after his wedding, Mr. Commonwealth Abhijeet Gupta wins Cannes Open 2019

28/02/2019 -

GM Abhijeet Gupta won 33rd Cannes festival in France emphatically finishing a full point ahead of the competition. This was his first tournament after getting married. Despite being busy with all ceremonies and celebration, he showed no rust. In fact, if statistics are anything to come by then he completely overthrew them all, remained undefeated and won the tournament living up to his moniker of 'Mr Commonwealth'. Abhijeet had a performance rating of 2733 and scored 7.5/9 to win the tournament. He won a beautiful trophy and €1800 cash. 12-year old Pune lad, Aditya Samant scored his maiden IM-norm. In this report we show you some of the beautiful games he played and an interview with the man himself. Photo: Cannes Chess Club

Do you want to start playing the main lines after 1.d4 with White?

27/02/2019 -

Thanks to good chess advice being easily available these days chess players have realized that they should be playing main lines in the opening. However, the quantum of material is so extensive that players are thrown off by this approach and take up side lines. In the long run, however, they face problems and soon realize that they have stagnated. No matter how hard you work on your middlegame or endgame you are not able to improve. The reason is simple - you have to give yourself a good start. You have to begin with the main lines. With this in mind, ChessBase has released two volumes of 1.d4 repertoire for White by GM Nicholas Pert. It deals with all the main lines after 1.d4 and in this article we give you an overview of what you can expect.

Raunak Sadhwani scores his maiden GM norm at the Aeroflot Open 2019

27/02/2019 -

Raunak Sadhwani scored his maiden GM norm at the Aeroflot Open 2019. The youngster from Nagpur scored 5.0/8 against all opponents rated above 2570. Raunak is just 13 years old and he shot into international prominence when he very nearly beat Vishy Anand in round one of the Isle of Man event 2018. Since then Raunak has moved from strength to strength. He missed his GM norms at the Sunway Chess Festival and Gibraltar Masters, but he finally achieved it at the Aeroflot Open 2019 with one round to spare. In this article we acquaint you with further with this young talent and show you two of his impressive games - the first one was the loss against Anand which the boy has annotated himself and the second one is his win against Srinath Narayanan annotated by IM Sagar Shah. 

The solution to the mate in three problem given by Kramnik to Anand

27/02/2019 -

A few days ago we posed you with a mate in three problem which was given by Kramnik to Anand and by Anand to the players present in Pune. It was quite a tough problem and a group of three GMs and seven IMs standing there couldn't solve the problem for nearly seven minutes! We subsequently realized that this problem had been composed by Marin y Llovet Valentin in 1904. In this article we reveal the solution to you - not the answer directly but we first tell you why the normal tries fail and then why the beautiful solution works. You will also get to see the video of Anand giving the position to the players and the entire atmosphere of the place. Thumbnail image: Lennart Ootes.

World Teams 2019: Team Composition revealed

26/02/2019 -

FIDE published the Team compositions for 2019 World Team Championships which will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan from 4th - 15th March 2019. India got wild cards in both Open and Women section. The Indian contingent for the Open section is comprised of GM Adhiban Baskaran, GM Krishnan Sasikiran, GM Sethuraman S P, GM Aravindh Chithambaram and GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly. In the women's section, the Indian team consists of WGM Soumya Swaminathan, IM Tania Sachdev, IM Eesha Karavade, WGM Bhakti Kulkarni and IM Padmini Rout. GM Srinath Narayanan and GM Swapnil Dhopade are the non-playing captains for the Open and Women's team. In this article we also reveal the winner of the Fritz 16 signed copy contest which we had launched during the Batumi Olympiad. Photo: ChessBase India archives 

Aeroflot 2019 R07: Sasikiran loses, Nihal beats Pragg

26/02/2019 -

Sasikiran tasted his first defeat at the Aeroflot Open 2019. It came at the hands of the talented Armenian Haik Martirosyan. In spite of the defeat Sasikiran continues to lead the tournament with 5.5/7. But now he has two more people on the same score - Martirosyan and the Estonian GM Kaido Kulaots. Sasikiran still has excellent chances of winning the event if he can get the better of Kulaots in round 8. Another important game of the round was Nihal Sarin against Praggnanandhaa. The battle between these two talents was a hard fought one and Nihal came out on top playing an excellent endgame. We have the report of round 7 with some excellent pictures sent to us by David Llada, who is present in Moscow.

92 Indian Chess players raise Rs.1,01,973 for Pulwama terror attack Martyrs

25/02/2019 -

The Indian chess community came together and raised Rs.1,01,973 to be contributed towards the Bharat Ke Veer Corpus fund towards the family of Pulwama Attack Martyrs who were killed due to terrorist attack. This was the first time that India no.3 Vidit Gujrathi participated in a ChessBase India online blitz. His sole intention was to raise awareness and funds thanks to his presence. Apart from Vidit many other top Indian players contributed who included Adhiban, Soumya Swaminathan, GN Gopal, Eesha Karavade, Bhakti Kulkarni, Laxman RR among others. The highest contribution was made by GM Arjun Erigaisi of Rs.15,000 and he also won the Pulwama online blitz and a signed copy of Carlsen's DVD. A report by the tournament director and coordinator Shahid Ahmed.

Gahan MG wins first of its kind Akshayakalpa BNCF Grand Prix finale

25/02/2019 -

It was a fantastic organizational effort by Bangalore North Chess Forum (BNCF) backed by Akshayakalpa, who sponsored the entire Grand Prix series. Seven events were held in Bengaluru which attracted players all across Karnataka. From each tournament 5-6 players qualified for the Grand Finale, which was held on the 17th of February at the BEL Officer's Club. The field consisted of the cream of Karnataka chess - Thejkumar, Girish Koushik and Antonio Viani (Stany was missing). The tournament was won by Gahan MG who played some fantastic chess scoring 6.5/7 and finishing half a point ahead of the field. Second place went to experienced IM Ravi Hegde, while GM Thejkumar was third. Hinduja Reddy, who was present at the venue, sends us a detailed report with pictures, game analysis and videos.

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