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Pardubice Open 2019: Six norms for Indians!

10/08/2019 -

GM Jiri Stocek of Czech Republic scored an unbeaten 7.5/9 to win Pardubice Open 2019. He finished a half point ahead of a group of nine players who scored 7.0/9. Top seed Czech no.3 Viktor Laznicka finished second due to a better tie-break score, followed by Sergei Movsesian of Armenia. Among the Indians, Deepan Chakravarthy was the best finisher with 6.5/9 at 11th position and Shardul Gagare also with the same points grabbed 13th position. The tournament was a big success for the Indians as we scored six norms - WGM norms for Rakshitta Ravi, Shalmali Gagare and Sahajashri CH, IM norms for Dushyant Sharma, Nikhil Dixit and Moksh Doshi. In this report we have annotated games by norm makers and also some very interesting videos shot by Rupali Mullick at the venue!

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Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 8: Jobava wins again, Karthikeyan slips in the penultimate round

10/08/2019 -

In the penultimate round of the 26th Abu Dhabi Chess Masters 2019 Karthikeyan Murali ended up losing to GM Yakubboev Nodirbek. It was a highly complex game in King's Indian defense where the Indian Grandmaster made a series of inexplicable errors handing over his winning advantage to the Uzbek player. Karthikeyan has thus slipped to the 11th place on the rank-list with 5.5/8. On the other hand, the in-form leader Baadur Jobava resumed his stellar run as he registered yet another victory against the polish Grandmaster Mateusz Bartel. In this report we bring you analysis, photos, and more.

When the organizers were under time pressure

10/08/2019 -

Chess players are often seen under time pressure. With the clock ticking down they have to make decisions which would make or break their event. This is quite hard as you can imagine. But at the National under-25 championships held in Jammu things were a bit different. Apart from the players, the organizers were also under tremendous time pressure. And this time at stake was not a game, but the lives of chess players. The Government of India had made an announcement that section 370 and article 35A would be abrogated from the constitution. This made the situation in Jammu and Kashmir quite tense. As the tournament was in progress until 7th of August, the organizers were now in a tough situation. What was to be done? Should the tournament be scrapped, should they continue with the event? Well, with the benefit of hindsight we can now say that the decisions made by the organizers were extremely brave and they managed to overcome this unique situation with some excellent moves. Read on. 

Harikrishnan and Anuj finish in top 10 at Sitges Open 2019

09/08/2019 -

GM Sergey Volkov of Russia won 45th Open Internacional d'Escacs Vila de Sitges 2019. There was a three-way tie for the first place with a score of 7.0/9. According to the tie-break score, GM Namig Guliyev of Azerbaijan was placed 2nd and IM Raven Sturt of USA finished at 3rd place. India's young talents IM Ra A Harikrishnan and FM Anuj Shrivatri scored 6.5/9 each. They both tied for the 4th place, according to tie-break score they secured 6th and 9th position respectively. Harikrishnan (2401) performed at 2491 and increased his Elo rating by 12 points. Anuj (2372) performed at 2393 and gained 9 Elo rating points. Anuj is 19 Elo rating points away from fulfilling the rating criteria for IM title. Among other Indians, Sreeshwan Maralakshikari drew the final round, finishing with 5.5/9 at 21st position. Photo: Niklesh Jain

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 7: Deep Sengupta fights back, Karthikeyan Murali falters in French

09/08/2019 -

After suffering an unfortunate loss against Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei in round five, Deep Sengupta has taken charge once again as he registered his second consecutive victory in the seventh round against the strong Turkish Grandmaster Mustafa Yilmaz. On the other hand, Karthikeyan Murali missed an opportunity to punish his opponent Bartosz Socko in a French defense and had to settle for a draw. Playing in the top board, leader Jobava Baadur also drew his game against China's Ni Hua. Thus, maintaining his full point lead over the field with 6.5/7. With only two rounds of the event remaining, there are six players tied to 5.5/7 behind Jobava. Will any one of them be able to catch up with the leader? In this report we bring you photos, analyses, and more from the seventh round of 26th Abu Dhabi Masters 2019!  

Action packed chess in Akola, Maharashtra

08/08/2019 -

Akola is a city in Vidarbha region in the state of Maharashtra in central India. It is the 3rd largest city in Vidarbha, situated about 290 miles east of the state capital, Mumbai, and 140 miles west of the second capital, Nagpur. This time it is going to organize three rating tournaments. These three tournaments will be organized by PR Chess Academy, Akola and Akola district Chess Association. This is a great boost for the sport of chess in Akola, as from 8th September 2019 to 2nd February 2020 these tournaments will be organized. One of the key members of the organizing team Pravin Hend has sent us the following article, along with an invitation to all the players across India to visit Akola and play in the events.

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 6: Indians cause triple upsets in the sixth round of Abu Dhabi Festival

08/08/2019 -

The Indian contingent came out with flying colours in the sixth round of 26th Abu Dhabi Festival 2019 as the fifth, sixth, and seventh seeds of the event were all outclassed by Indians! Karthikeyan Murali beat the strong Ukrainian Grandmaster and the seventh seed of the event Andrei Volokitin in a solid positional style. Aryan Chopra crushed the sixth seeded Vladimir Onischuk's Modern defense in a mere thirty-eight moves. And IM Krishna C.R.G shocked the fifth seed Vladimir Akopian by overpowering his Benoni. Elsewhere, Jobava Baadur continued his brilliant streak as he registered his sixth consecutive victory against Parham Maghsoodloo taking a full point lead with 6.0/6 over the entire field. Four players - Nodirbek Yakubboev, Socko Bartosz, Karthikeyan Murali, and Ni Hua - follow him with 5.0/6 points. 

Chess Friendship Band and ChessBase India Pen for all orders placed on 8th August 2019

07/08/2019 -

The Independence Day is coming up and so is the festival of Raksha Bandhan. The Friendship Day just passed a couple of days ago and overall this week is a festive one! In order to celebrate it, on the 8th of August, ChessBase India has a special offer where any order in the ChessBase India shop entitles you to a free Chess Friendship Band and a ChessBase India pen. It doesn't matter if you are buying a software or a book or a t-shirt. As long as you buy it on the 8th of August, we will be couriering the freebies to you on your address. Also with India's 73rd Independence Day just coming up, it would be a good idea to get yourself one of our high quality T-shirts.

11 Indians have qualified for the World Cup 2019

07/08/2019 -

A lot of elite players seeing the talent crop of Indian chess have said that India will be a superpower in the world of chess in the years to come. While, this is definitely true, you can already sense the tremors of the upcoming upheaval. From 9th of September to 4th of October, the World Cup 2019 will be held in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia. It is a 128-player knockout event and two finalists will qualify for the Candidates tournament in 2020. Last time that the event was held in 2017 we had six Indians in the field. This year we have eleven participants. With Vishy Anand leading from the top, and Nihal Sarin getting a FIDE President's wild card nomination, this is going to be a tremendously exciting event for all Indian chess fans to follow!

Resigning a game with grace!

07/08/2019 -

Wei Yi, currently rated 2727, is world no.27. He is one of the finest chess players in the world with a fine tactical acumen and an ability to play fearless chess. Known as the best chess prodigy, Wei Yi became the youngest GM in the world to not just cross the 2600 Elo mark but also 2700! He has created many brilliancies in his chess career, the most famous one being Wei Yi vs Bruzon Batista in 2015. However, in the fifth round of the Belt and Road International 2019, he was at the receiving end of some brilliant play by Surya Sekhar Ganguly. Wei Yi made an opening error and was completely lost after move no.9. Credit goes to Ganguly for making the next seven moves with great precision and all that Wei Yi could do was resign the game. But here lies the point of the entire article. Instead of just resigning the game, Wei Yi played a small practical joke, gave up his queen in a funny way and even after the event was sport enough to laugh at his own mistake! Check out the Chinese prodigy's great sportsman spirit.

Ganguly wins Belt and Road 2019 and US$50,000!

07/08/2019 -

It has been action-packed last few weeks for Indian Chess. First it was Sandipan Chanda's dominating performance in Leiden Open, then Vidit's scintillating win in Biel and Praggnanandhaa's unbeaten streak in Xtracon. The breakthroughs only get better and bigger as today Surya Sekhar Ganguly wins the super strong Belt and Road Hunan International Open, bagging home the first prize of a whopping 50,000 US Dollar! How big exactly is this amount? Well, just to put things into perspective, this is even more than what Maxime Vachier-Lagrave recently won (US $37,500) by securing first place at the Paris Grand Chess Tour 2019! Finishing ahead of six strong 2700+ Grandmasters with a score of 7.0/9, this is certainly the greatest tournament victory of Ganguly's chess career and arguably one of the greatest in Indian Chess. So how did he do it? We had covered Ganguly's rounds 1-5 in a previous article, in this we explore the champion's journey in last four. 

Cancer Survivor Champions at 10th World Children's Winners Games

06/08/2019 -

The Tenth World Children Winners Games took place from 4th-7th July 2019 in Moscow, Russia. Each year childhood survivors from all over the world are invited to participate in various sporting competitive events like Track, Chess, Football, Table Tennis, Swimming and Shooting where they go on to search for and gain their self-worth. This year, 16 countries had participated. Since 2014 Tata hospital is invited to participate in it, all the 10 children from India participated in this event were sent through Tata Memorial Hospital. Nidhi and Devanshi won the gold medals in their respective age category, Priti and Hritik won silver medal, Atharva and Tanush got bronze medal for the same. Photo: FA Kedar Palsule

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 5: Deep Sengupta's regret and Karthikeyan's cake walk!

06/08/2019 -

Keeping opponent's retaliations in check while enjoying a dominant position is one of many tricky things in chess that even masters falter at. In the fifth round of 26th Abu Dhabi Chess Festival India's Deep Sengupta was up against the strong Iranian talent Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei. He made a convincing case out of the opening and into the middlegame but ultimately it was his opponent's counterplay that got the better of him. Elsewhere, Karthikeyan Murali registered an effortless win as his Spanish adversary Miguel Santos Ruiz made one mistake after another, and Praggnanandhaa too had an easy time holding his higher-rated rival Mustafa Yilmaz to a draw. After five rounds of the event Jobava Baadur is still on the sole lead with an unbeaten 5.0/5, while Karthikeyan single-handedly leads the Indian contingent with a commendable 4.0/5.  

Sneha Halder victorious at Smart Girl Assam

05/08/2019 -

Commonwealth under-10 gold medalist Sneha Halder of West Bengal won Smart Girl All India open in Assam. Both Sneha and top seed of the tournament Tanisha A R Som of Assam scored 7.0/8. Sneha became champion due to a better tie-break score. Total 76 players participated from five different states across the nation. Smart Girl is an AICF project where 15 different states are given ₹50000 each to conduct a girls only FIDE Rated tournament, they just have to ensure a minimum of 50 girls participation in the tournament. Photo: Ravi Kant Tiwari

A tournament in the memory of the man who created India's first WGM

05/08/2019 -

AS Subbaraman is a man towards whom Indian chess would always be indebted. He was the man who decided to leave the well-trodden paths and motivated his daughters to become chess champions. He made them believe that sky was the limit and the result was there for all to see. Two WGMs were created from the Subbaraman family with S. Vijayalakshmi becoming India's first WGM and S. Meenakshi following thereafter. Viji was also twice Olympiad medal winner and an Arjuna awardee. AS Subbaraman's contribution towards Viji's growth and indirectly Indian women's chess growth has been mammoth. "He was my first and only coach", says Viji. AS Subbaraman passed away 12 years ago in 2007. In order to remember this brilliant mind, Queens Chess Academy will be holding a rating blitz tournament on the 15th of August 2019 at IIT-Madras. The total prize fund is Rs.1,50,000 and the first prize is Rs.35,000. In this article you get to know more about this event. 

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