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Vidit Gujrathi: "I, like everyone else, want to perform well"

18/01/2019 -

GM Vidit Gujrathi has every reason to be happy about his performance thus far at the Tata Steel Masters. Scoring 3/5, he is not only just a half point behind the leaders but has also remained undefeated, saving crucial games against Jan-Krzysztof Duda and even the mighty Magnus Carlsen. On the first rest day of the event, Aditya Pai caught up with Vidit to talk about how he prepared for his maiden appearance at the Tata Steel Masters, his saves against Carlsen and Duda, his love for the city of Prague and a lot more. | Photo: Alina L'ami

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A rapid and blitz tournament with 2 lakh prize fund in Mumbai

17/01/2019 -

Amar Godbole was a passionate chess player in his younger days. He wanted to become a strong chess player, but education first and then work made his chess career take a backseat. With the mindset of providing a platform for other budding talents of the city, First move Chess Club and We One Events will organize an Open Rapid and Blitz Chess Tournament on 19th and 20th January 2019 at Prabodhankar Thackeray Krida Sankul, Vile-Parle (East). Total 2 lakhs worth of prize fund is up for grabs. There will be prizes in various age group category and some special prizes in the form of ChessBase Premium Account. Players of Mumbai will remember that Prabodhan Thackeray is the same place where the famous Bournvita inter-school tournaments used to take place.

Aditya Mittal and Sreeshwan Maralakshikari score two IM norms and cross 2450 Elo

17/01/2019 -

Aditya Mittal and Sreeshwan Maralakshikari have many things in common - both of them are born in 2006 and are 12 years old. Both of them had a rating of around 2250 and both of them are immensely talented. Not to forget that they are great friends of each other and often practice chess together. The question was why weren't they making their norms? Well, the two boys decided to let their chess do the talking. Both Aditya Mittal and Shreeshwan Maralakshikari scored back to back IM norms and pumped up their rating over 200 Elo points to reach 2450+. While Aditya scored his IM norms at the Mumbai IIFLW 2018-19 and Delhi GM international 2019, Shreeshwan did it at the Lorca Open 2018 and Roquetas De Mar 2019 in Spain. In this article IM Sagar Shah looks at these two amazing talents in more depth.

Tata Steel Chess: Ding joins Nepo as tournament leader

17/01/2019 -

At the conclusion of the fifth round of Tata Steel Chess, Magnus Carlsen finally broke his 21-game-long draw streak with a resounding win over Jorden van Foreest. Meanwhile, GM Ding Liren of China joined Ian Nepomniachtchi in tournament lead, having won his game over Sam Shankland from an innocuous-looking middlegame. Vidit Gujrathi could have been the third winner of the day, but he missed his chance against Vladimir Fedoseev and retained his second place. Vishy Anand also showed some excellent preparation to hold Anish Giri to a draw comfortably. In the Challengers' segment, Vladislav Kovalev won a brilliantly over Benjamin Gledura to take tournament lead alongside Anton Korobov.   

Tata Steel Chess: Vidit Gujrathi, Anish Giri join Anand and Ding in second place

16/01/2019 -

Going into the fourth round, Vidit Gujrathi continued his great form at Tata Steel Chess, beating Jorden van Foreest in an equal endgame. As white, the Indian ace had an extra pawn in an endgame with bishops of opposite colours, wherein he took advantage of his opponent's misjudgement to clinch the full point. Anish Giri also won his second game of the event against Richard Rapport to climb up to the joint second spot. Vishy Anand, in the meanwhile, was held to a tepid draw by Teimur Radjabov. In the Challengers', Vladislav Kovalev won the only decisive game of round 4 to join the tournament leaders at 2.5/4 while Praggnanandhaa signed peace with Vincent Keymar in a Queen's Gambit. Round 4 report.

Gukesh becomes 2nd youngest GM in the history of chess at 12 years, 7 months and 17 days

15/01/2019 -

In October 2017 Gukesh was a talented youngster with a rating of 2322 and no norms. In 16 months, he scored three IM norms, three GM norms, pumped up his rating to 2500 and became the second youngest GM in the history of the game. On 15th of January Gukesh achieved his final GM norm at the Delhi GM 2019 and with it became a GM at the age of 12 years, 7 months and 17 days. How did this youngster achieve it? On the surface it looks like an extremely smooth journey where Gukesh achieved one milestone after another. But when you delve deeper, you see tremendous amount of sacrifices, grit, determination and much more from not just the boy but his entire family. This article is a dedication to India's youngest GM, who is sure to make it big in the years to come. Thumbnail image | David Llada. 

Tata Steel Chess: Vidit stands strong against Carlsen's trademark grind

15/01/2019 -

After three rounds, the Masters' segment of Tata Steel Chess saw a sole leader emerge in Ian Nepomniachtchi, Playing against Vladimir Kramnik, Nepo pulled out a win in the Berlin defence to overtake his co-leader, Vishy Anand, who was held to a draw by Vladimir Fedoseev. Magnus Carlsen had to settle for his third consecutive draw in the tournament but this time it wasn't short. In fact, the reigning world champ tried for a full 131 moves splitting the point with Vidit Gujrathi. In the Challengers, Parham Maghsoodloo and Andrey Esipenko joined the leaders while R Praggnanandhaa bridged a 100+ point rating gap to hold GM Erwin L'ami to a draw.

Tata Steel Chess: Anand, Nepo retain lead after short but sharp draws

14/01/2019 -

After suffering a loss in the first round, both Anish Giri and Jorden van Foreest bounced back with victories in the second round of the Tata Steel Chess 2019. While Giri, as he himself admitted after the game played like "drunk Petrosian" to withstand a powerful kingside attack by Kramnik, Van Foreest came out on top against Duda after the latter made inaccuracies in mutual time trouble. In one of the top games of the day, Magnus Carlsen was happy to finish with a "short but exciting" draw against Ian Nepomniactchi as the latter kept his tournament lead. The other tournament leader, Viswanathan Anand also drew a short and sharp game against Vladimir Fedoseev to retain his top spot. Round 2 report.

How can a GM rated 2470 lose in 7 moves?

14/01/2019 -

When we look at grandmasters we think that they are infallible, they cannot make mistakes. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Grandmasters make mistakes, it's just that their frequency of errors is much less than that of a non titled player. In the seventh round of the Delhi GM International 2019, Bangladesh's strongest GM for many years and a fantastic chess player Ziaur Rahman (2470) was pitted against Diptayan Ghosh (2544), a strong and talented GM of India. Everything began normally as Ziaur played his Trompowsky. However, on the sixth move, he made a huge blunder. Diptayan saw it immediately, Ziaur saw it too. But he had already made his move. As Black executed his seventh move, all that the Bangladeshi GM could do was to resign the game. Check out the game with move by move diagrams.

Tata Steel Chess 2019 Round 1: Anand and Nepomniachtchi open with wins

13/01/2019 -

The first elite chess event of the year, Tata Steel Chess, went underway in the Dutch town of Wijk aan  Zee on Saturday. After a nail-biting first round, Viswanathan Anand  and Ian Nepomniachtchi turned out to be the two victors of the day. Magnus Carlsen showed some enterprising chess in the premier matchup against Ding Liren but was unable to secure a win. Teimur Radjabov, on the other hand, was a heartbeat away from winning his opening clash against Vladimir Kramnik but the former world champ managed to wriggle out with a draw. Meanwhile, Parham Maghsoodloo found his king checkmated in the top game of the challenger's group against Anton Korobov. Evgeny Bareev also made the most of R Praggnanandhaa's errors to open with a win. Erwin l'Ami and Maksim Chigaev started with wins on the first day. Round 1 report.

Live games from Tata Steel Chess 2019

12/01/2019 -

Tata Steel Chess 2019 - the Wimbledon of chess is being held from the 12th to the 28th of January 2019 in the city of Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands. The players in the Masters section are Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Teimour Radjabov, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Samuel Shankland, Vladimir Fedoseev, Jan-Kryzsztof Duda, Richard Rapport, Vidit Gujrathi and Jorden van Foreest. In the Challengers section, the India is represented by 13-year-old R. Praggnanandhaa. On this page you can find live games of both masters and challengers section and also live commentary by Peter Leko and Anna Rudolph. Live Games begin each day at 6 p.m. IST.

Rs.6,00,000 prize fund for a one-day rapid?!

12/01/2019 -

The organizers in Indian chess are taking risks - the Delhi GM Open 2019 has a prize fund of Rs. 1 crore. Taking a cue from them the Universal Chess Foundation in Mumbai is organizing a six lakh rupees event in the city. Sounds normal, right? Well, it's just a one-day rapid event! And it is only for players below the rating of 1800. If you participate in this tournament, you not only get a chance to fight for very high prizes, but also get coaching from GM Saptarshi Roy for four hours (!) and a ChessBase workshop. In this article you will find all the information related to the tournament. And if you enroll from ChessBase India for the event, you also get a special gift.

Delhi GM round 4: Unheralded Neelash Saha leads with a perfect 4.0/4

12/01/2019 -

The biggest prize money tournament in Indian chess - the 17th Delhi GM International 2019 is in progress from the 8th to the 16th of January 2019. Four rounds have taken place and we have five players leading with a score of 4.0/4. While four of the five leaders are GMs, we have one of them who is an untitled player from West Bengal - Neelash Saha. In this article we are going to have a look at two of Neelash's excellent games in which he beat an IM and a GM by playing high quality chess. Photos from the venue by Niklesh Jain and game analysis by IM Sagar Shah. 

National A blind Round 8-10: It's a race to the finish between Kishan Gangolli and Subhendu Patra

12/01/2019 -

Kishan Gangolli has been the five-time national champion of India in the visually challenged section. He has been known to dominate the national tournaments since quite some years now. However, in 2019 he isn't able to get the desired lead as Subhendu Patra from Odisha is right on his heels matching blow for blow. In their personal encounter which took place in the ninth round Kishan managed to win his game against Subhendu. However Patra came back strongly in the tenth round when he beat Swapnil Shah while Kishan had to draw his game against Marimuthu in an inferior position. As things stand we have two leaders Kishan Gangolli and Subhendu Patra with 8.0/10 and three rounds to go. Report of rounds 8 to 10 by chief arbiter Manjunatha Murthy.

Breaking: FIDE announces an additional qualification path to Candidates 2020 - FIDE Grand Swiss!

11/01/2019 -

Recently in a video published on ChessBase India entitled "Fireside chat with Vishy Anand", Vishy was asked - "What would be your strategy for the coming qualification cycle?" To which Anand replied, "My route is fairly narrow in the sense that I have to play the World Cup and qualify. The second route is narrower and that is via rating. I would have to gain at least 30 points and that too pretty fast, because it is based on monthly averages!" What Anand didn't know at that point is that FIDE would come up with another way of qualifying for the Candidates 2020 and it released this on the 10th of January 2019. One spot of qualification to the Candidates 2020 will be reduced via Rating criteria and the new FIDE Grand Swiss is announced. What is this about? Get to know all about it in the article below.

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