Praggnanandhaa wins Xtracon Open 2019, Vaishali makes her maiden GM norm

28/07/2019 -

India's wunderkind 13-year-old GM R Praggnanandhaa started out Xtracon Open 2019 as the 21st seed, scored an unbeaten 8.5/10 at a performance rating of 2741, to win the tournament convincingly. He finished a half point ahead of the pack of five players who were all higher rated than him. His sister WGM R. Vaishali also performed admirably by scoring 7.5/10 and scored her maiden GM-norm and second IM-norm. She is the only woman to have finished in top 25 in the tournament. One of the newest IM's of India, 11-year-old Bharath Subramaniyam H also made his presence felt, by finishing at 16th ahead of 11 other GMs and beating two 2600+ opponents. Photo: Amruta Mokal

Attacking Monday Mornings with Sohan Phadke Part II - The Pin

28/07/2019 -

Fide Master Sohan Phadke is well-known in the Indian Chess circle for his aggressive style of play. Over the course of more than two decades, he has invented unique attacking principles and techniques of his own. In the series "Attacking Monday Mornings with Sohan Phadke" he brings to you some of these "secret" recipes. This is a weekly series of five videos that will be published on every Monday at 8 a.m. from 15th July onwards. Sohan would like you to appreciate the art of attack better and become a stronger player through these videos. Here are the positions of part-II of the series which deals with the theme of Pin. Try to solve them and then you can check out the video for the solution. 

Valourous Vidit sets Biel on fire with an astounding 11.0/14 in blitz!

28/07/2019 -

After the Rapids, one felt that Vidit was not playing his best chess. But his play improved towards the end of rapids and in the classical event! After dominating the first 4 rounds of the classical, he now razed the field in Blitz with a powerful 11.0/14! His victory in this section followed a well known pattern - against the bottom 4 players he was absolutely ruthless with 8.0/8(!) and held his own against the remaining 3 by breaking even (3.0/6). Sam Shankland played superbly as well, but a last round loss from a completely winning position ruined his chances, and he now trails the two players race by a point with 3 Classical games left to play. An exhaustive report from Biel by Tanmay Srinath. 

Unconquerable Vishy Anand leads Paris Grand Chess Tour event with 5.0/6

28/07/2019 -

The third event of the Grand Chess Tour 2019 began in Paris from the 27th of July. It is a rapid and blitz tournament and for Vishy Anand, it is his second GCT event on the tour this year. In the first one, Anand had performed not up to his standards in Zagreb, Croatia, where he drew nine of his eleven classical games and lost two. Maybe he isn't left with that power to beat the youngsters was what everyone thought. Well, Vishy has always had a knack of proving his detractors wrong, not by his words, but with his powerful play on the board. On the first day of the Paris Grand Chess Tour rapid Vishy beat Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri and drew with Fabiano Caruana. With 5.0/6 he now leads the event along with Caruana.

Shahab Ahmad Farooqui wins 14th UP State under-25

28/07/2019 -

In a closely fought battle for 14th Uttar Pradesh State under-25 championship, five players finished at 6.0/7. However, due to a better tie-break score Shahab Ahmad Farooqui of Varanasi clinched the championship. Jai Saxena of Prayagraj secured the first runner-up position and top seed Vikash Nishad of Kanpur had to settle for second runner-up position. Total 76 players participated in this four-day tournament held in Kaushambi from 10 different districts across the state. Photo: FA Raghavendra Shukla

Bhakti goes home richer by Rs.4,00,000, Vantika finishes second and Divya third

28/07/2019 -

The 46th National Women's Championship 2019 came to a successful conclusion. The field was dominated by Bhakti Kulkarni who scored an unbeaten 10.0/11 finishing a whooping 1.5 points ahead of the rest. Vantika Agrawal and Divya Deshmukh both ended with 8.5/11 and were placed second and third respectively based on tie-break scores. Overall, the tournament saw quite a few surprises, most notable among them was the performance of 15-year-old Mrudul Dehankar who fought tooth and nail with her more experienced opponents and finished fifth surpassing them with an impressive score of 8.0/11. In this final report we bring you photos from the last day, an overview of the entire event, and more. 

Paracin 2019: Nandhidhaa grabs her second IM norm, Pavan BNB wins B group

27/07/2019 -

GM Ivan Ivanisevic of Serbia won the 12th edition of Paracin International Open 2019. Ivan remained undefeated and scored 7.5/9, finished a half point ahead of the pack of four players. FM Raymond Song of Chinese Taipei scored 7.0/9 and finished 2nd due to a better tie-break score. GM Dmitry Svetushkin of Moldova also scored 7.0/9 and he defeated Song in the penultimate round, however due to a lower tie-break score, he had to settle for 3rd position. Vishnu Prasanna was the only Indian to finish in top 10 by scoring 6.5/9. Nandhidhaa scored her second IM-norm at the event and Pavan BNB won the B-group. We had two Indians who gained huge number of rating points and we bring their video interviews. Report from the venue by Rupali Mullick.

Biel Masters 2019: Brkic and Donchenko blaze out of the blocks with 4.5/5!

27/07/2019 -

The Biel Grandmaster tournament has entered its only rest day, after 5 grueling days of chess. Along with this flagship event, a 9 round Master tournament is being organised for players above 2000 elo. The top seed is newly minted 2700 Jeffery Xiong, who faces stiff competition from fellow American Gata Kamsky and Israeli Tamir Nabaty. With 34 GMs and 22 IMs there are a lot of norm chances as well! After 5 rounds, Croatian surprise package Ante Brkic and German Alexander Donchenko lead the tournament with 4.5 out of 5, followed by a host of players on 4. In this report from Biel Tanmay Srinath brings you games, critical positions and photos, with a glimpse of the excursion organised for the GM tournament participants on their rest day. 

13-year-old Sreeshwan Maralakshikari is now an International Master

26/07/2019 -

This is a story that will warm your heart. It begins with a 13-year-old youngster from Hyderabad, who has a rating of 2462 and two IM norms. Born in 2006, Sreeshwan is definitely one of India's biggest chess talents. While on the chess board things were going great for Sreeshwan, off the board, his family was unable to afford the increasing expenses of his booming chess career. His coaching was cut down and since the last six months he had only played in one tournament. That's when a samaritan from Mumbai came forward to support Sreeshwan's talent by sponsoring his trip to Spain. The youngster travelled to Spain via the ChessBase India Power Group Tour and at the Sant Marti Open 2019 made his third and final norm to become an IM!

Bhakti Kulkarni is the National Women's Champion 2019

26/07/2019 -

Bhakti has done it! She has won the 46th edition of National Women's Championship 2019 with one round to spare. This is her second National title in a row! She dominated the field with a stupendous score of 9.5/10, achieving a rating performance of 2620 and gaining 42 Elo points in the process! In the tenth round she was up against Priyanka K of Tamil Nadu with the Black pieces. The game started off with a fianchetto Ruy Lopez which Bhakti masterfully steered into an opposite coloured bishop ending but as the title of this article suggests, ending of opposite coloured bishops is by no means synonymous to draw! In other boards, Vantika Agrawal and Divya Deshmukh won their respective games against Mary Ann Gomes and Michelle Catherina; while top seed Soumya Swaminathan and legendary IM Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman were handed shock defeats by Bala Kannamma P and Mrudul Dehankar respectively.

Praggnanandhaa in sole lead at Xtracon chess with 6.5/7 and a rating performance of 2788!

26/07/2019 -

Praggnanandhaa has struck golden form at the strong Xtracon Open in Denmark. Starting as the 21st seed, Pragg is the sole leader of the tournament with a score of 6.5/7. He currently has a performance rating of 2788 and has gained 20 Elo points, taking his live rating to 2560. Pragg also scalped two 2600+ GMs - Anton Korobov and Daniele Vocaturo. In this article we see both the games. Apart from Pragg there are three more Indians who are doing well. Karthikeyan Murali is unbeaten and is on 5.5/7. Vaishali has beaten already two grandmasters and is well on course for an IM norm. Bharath Subramaniyam, who is a few months shy of turning 12, beat 2615 rated Rasmus Svane and is on the 6th place on the ranking list.  

Nico's missed 'Game of the Year' overshadows Shankland's rook sacrifice!

26/07/2019 -

Really? Game of the year? You heard it right! After an opening mistake from Vidit, Georgiadis turned on beast mode and made it to an endgame a pawn up. However, instead of a routine piece capture, he had a chance to end the game with a spectacular piece sacrifice! Vidit survived by the scruff of his neck, and is now joined at the top by Sam Shankland, who produced a Sicilian miniature consisting of temporary piece and exchange sacrifices to down Maghsoodloo in only 26 moves. Peter Leko and Sebastian Bogner had substantial advantages against Abdusattorov and Cori, but couldn't make them count and ended up sharing the spoils. A comprehensive report from Biel by Tanmay Srinath. 

National Women's 2019 R09: Chess is a tough game!

26/07/2019 -

Do you agree with our title? If you don't, then read on. In this article we are going to show you two games where the critical moment was so difficult to understand that strong players like Soumya Swaminathan and Vantika Agrawal went wrong. Just one wrong move and the game was over. That's why chess is such an unforgiving game. On the other hand Bhakti Kulkarni is playing chess like a person who has just about everything under control. She doesn't miss any tactics. If she gets an advantage she calmly converts it. It's almost as if she cannot put a foot wrong. With 8.5/9 she is now leading the tournament with 1.5 points and has already gained 36 Elo points. In round 10 she takes on K. Priyanka. Will she stop Bhakti Kulkarni? Follow the live games on 26th of July at 10 a.m.

Live Games from the 46th National Women's Championship 2019

25/07/2019 -

With the first prize of Rs.4,00,000, the 46th National Women's Championships 2019 is one of the most keenly contested women tournaments of Indian chess. We have the top seed of the tournament Soumya Swaminathan, followed by defending champion Bhakti Kulkarni. The third seed is the young, talented and unpredictable Divya Deshmukh. Apart from them we have Vijayalakshmi, Srija Seshadri, Mary Ann Gomes and many more top players of Indian chess. On this page you can follow the live games on a daily basis from 19th to 27th of July. The rounds begin 10 a.m. each day, but in case of double rounds we have them at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. respectively. 20th of July and 22nd of July are double round days. Follow the games Live here!

Chettinadu Public School - A chess ambient institution in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu

25/07/2019 -

The ongoing 46th edition of National Women's Championship 2019 is being hosted and sponsored by the Chettinad Public School of Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu. While we are bringing you round by round in depth coverage of this highly important National level event, it would be remiss if we didn't mention about the very institution which has been key in its organization. In this article we exclusively take you to the venue of National Women's 2019, the Chettinadu Public School (CPS) - a CBSE affiliated senior secondary school that has made a name these days in the Indian chess scene. All the photos in this report have been provided by IA Gopakumar Sudhakaran.