10 reasons why you will fall in love with Vidit Gujrathi

24/10/2018 -

When you look at him, you feel that he does justice to the term - chess is a royal game! Always well dressed, soft spoken and at the same time thoughtful about all that he says, Vidit Gujrathi is the perfect ambassador for the upcoming boom of Indian chess. Today he turned 24 years old and has already spent a good 14 months in the 2700+ zone! While India has had many talents and strong players in the past, Vidit has proved that he has it in him to go the extra mile. He holds his own easily against the best in the world. In shorter formats he has scored wins over legendary players like Aronian and MVL. What makes him so special? We try to find out in this article. Also in the article is a contest where you can win Vidit's ChessBase DVD autographed by Vidit himself.

Isle of Man Masters: Two leaders remain

24/10/2018 -

After four rounds, only two players have managed to retain a 4/4 score -- Arkadij Naiditsch and Wang Hao. While Naiditsch defeated Tregubov in round 4, Wang Hao drew blood out of stone in his game against Erwin L'ami to join Naiditsch in the lead. On the top board, Jeffery Xiong avoided the Najdorf against MVL and managed to sign the truce against the French number one. In one of the biggest upsets of the round, GM Abhijeet Gupta managed to bring down GM Le Quang Liem in a razor sharp Sicilian. Meanwhile, Vidit Gujrathi had no problems defeating Praggnanandhaa after the latter mishandled the opening. Vishy Anand also won his game against Shyam Sundar to score his second victory of the event. Round 4 report.

Pouya Idani wins the 1st Goa GM International 2018

23/10/2018 -

It is the second time that an Iranian came to India and won a major GM open event. The first one was by Parham Maghsoodloo at the Mumbai IIFLW event in January 2018 and now it was Pouya Idani who won the title of the 1st Goa GM international 2018.  Pouya started as the fifth seed in the event and played a very smooth tournament to emerge as the champion with a score of 8.5/10. In fact, he was completely winning in the penultimate round, but missed his chance. He had to settle for a draw. But in the last round he played his heart out, beat Karthik Venkatraman and won the event. In this report we have all the excitement of the final round, but also a lot of interesting pictures, and interviews to give you a complete feel of this chess extravaganza.

Isle of Man Masters: Pragg wins the day!

23/10/2018 - In the third round of the Isle of Man Masters, GM Vidit Gujrathi, who was one of the tournament leaders after two rounds, agreed to a mere 16 move draw against compatriot Vaibhav Suri to slip down to the joint second place. Vishy Anand's game against Svane Rasmus wasn't much different either; the two signed peace after 24 moves. But the game that really stood out in the round was the one between R Praggnanandhaa and Pavel Eljanov. In a complex Sicilian Defence middle game, Pragg sacrificed his queen to come out on top the highly entertaining battle. In another exciting battle, GM Abhijeet Gupta and Boris Gelfand had spectators on the edge of their seats until the very end when the game finally petered out into a draw. Round 3 report. 

Isle of Man Masters: Another tough day for Anand

22/10/2018 -

Viswanathan Anand found himself in trouble once again in the second round of the Isle of Man Masters in Douglas. This time he was caught off guard in a French Defence by American GM Robert Hess. Although Anand's position looked precarious in the endgame, the Indian ace managed to hold ground and drew after 78 moves. Meanwhile Vidit Gujrathi, once again, played the game of the day. Sacrificing his queen, Vidit annihilated Debashis Das' king in merely 25 moves. Harsha Bharathakoti also won a fine attacking game against SP Sethuraman to reach 2.0/2. We have an illustrated report with games.

Isle of Man Masters: Raunak Sadhwani gives Vishy a major scare in the opening round

21/10/2018 -

In its fifth year, the Chess.com Isle of Man Masters has become the strongest open tournament ever! Headlined by six of the world's top ten chess players, the field boasts of as many as 20 Grandmasters rated above Elo 2700. However, as the opening round of the event came to a close, almost half of them were held to draws. Sundararajan Kidambi held Vladimir Kramnik on board four; just one board ahead, CRG Krishna signed the truce against Wesley So. Viswanathan Anand was also on the brink of losing against IM Raunak Sadhwani but the Madras Tiger found his way out and won after 74 moves. Round 1 report.

3rd India China Summit: China makes a strong comeback!

20/10/2018 -

After having narrowly lost to India in the second round, the Chinese team came back with a bang in the fourth round of the 3rd India China Chess Summit beating the host team with a  3½-½ margin. Murali Karthikeyan lost his second game in a row to Xu Yinglun; Srinath Narayanan went down against Lu Shanglei; and Aryan Chopra simply collapsed in an equal endgame against Bai Jinshi. Aravindh Chithambaram was the only Indian to remain undefeated as he was held to a draw by Xu Xiangyu. Round 4 report.

Goa GM 2018 Round 9: Being overambitious sometimes pays, sometimes doesn't!

20/10/2018 -

When you are playing the penultimate round, a good result can place you in a very pleasant situation in the final round. Hence, a lot of players try to overpush. This ambitious attitude in chess is very double-edged. Sometimes you are rewarded with a win and you feel like you took the right call, but sometimes you lose the game and that's when you promise yourself to be more objective from next time onwards. At the 1st Goa International Open GM chess tournament two players faced differing fortunes for trying too hard. Karthik Venkatraman won his game Neverov and moved to joint lead, while Bernadskiy overpressed a bit too much and lost his game to Sergey Kasparov. Illustrated report with pictures by Niklesh Jain Amruta Mokal. 

3rd India China Summit: India leads after three rounds

19/10/2018 -

From November 17 to 24, India is be taking on China in an 8 round match under the Scheveningen system at the International Chess Hall of the KIIT University in Bhubaneshwar India. The event features young grandmasters from both countries. After the first three rounds, the Indian team has come out on top with a win in the second round while rounds one and three ended as spiritedly fought draws. There were plenty of interesting games and we bring you a report on all the action from the 3rd India China Chess Summit.

Goa GM 2018 Round 8: An Iranian, an Ukrainian and an Armenian

19/10/2018 -

Going into the last two rounds of the 1st Goa GM International 2018 we have three leaders with 7.0/8 points. Idani Pouya of Iran beat Ankit Gajwa, Valeriy Neverov played an absolute gem to beat his country mate Vitaly Bernadskiy and Levon Babujian managed to beat Ivan Popov. Following these three GMs are six players on 6.5/8. They include Deepan Chakkravarthy, Raahul VS, Karthik Venkatraman, Sayantan Das, Vitaly Sivuk and Sergey Kasparov. Although an Indian is not in the lead, four of them are half point shy of the leader and have excellent chances of overtaking them if they do well in the last round. An illustrated round 8 report from Goa.

Opening report of the 1st FIDE World Chess Championship for the Disabled 2018

18/10/2018 -

The 1st FIDE World Team Chess Championship for Disabled 2018 started on 15 October in Wyndham Garden Hotel Dresden, Germany. The tournament witnesses the participation of 9 teams. Germany has 4 teams and Russia has 3 teams and the remaining teams are Hungary and Poland. Top seed is IPCA Russia. The event comprises of about 40 players including 2 IMs, 1 WIM and 2 WFMs. The 7-round event will conclude on 21st October 2018. Top 3 teams will receive medals and cash prize. Photo: Tournament Regulations

Goa GM 2018 Round 6+7: Madhya Pradesh domination!

18/10/2018 -

After a double round day in the mid way stage of a tournament, things suddenly start getting clear as to who would be the favourite to win the tournament. But at the Goa GM International 2018, seven out of ten rounds have been played and absolutely nothing is clear. We have five GMs and one FM in the lead with a score of 6.0/7. The big news of the day is definitely FM Ankit Gajwa, who is playing the tournament of his life. Ankit beats GM Himanshu Sharma, GM Martyn Kravtsiv and GM Ziaur Rahman in three consecutive rounds. Madhya Pradesh's good run in the tournament continued as apart from Ankit, Anuj Shrivatri was able to beat the strong Belgian GM Vadim Malakhatko. An illustrated report form the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium in Goa.

Rajdeep and Arpita win 46th West Bengal State Junior 2018

17/10/2018 -

Rajdeep Sarkar and Arpita Mukherjee win 46th West Bengal State Junior (under-19) 2018. Rajdeep scored 7.0/8, remained undefeated to clinch his second State title while Arpita scored an emphatic 7.5/8 to win the State Junior title for the 3rd time since 2014 after missing last year's edition. Last year's state champion Neelash Saha also scored 7.0/8 and finished at 2nd position due to a lower tie-break score. Koustav Chatterjee missed his 3rd State title in four months as he scored 6.5/8 and had to settle with 3rd position. Diya Chowdhury scored 6.5/8 and finished at 2nd position and Mehendi Sil scored 6.0/8 and finished 3rd. Photo: Swati Biswas

Goa GM 2018 Round 5: Who said GMs and IMs do not blunder?

16/10/2018 -

After five rounds at the Goa GM International 2018 we have just three leaders on 100% score and they are all from outside India - Pouya Idani, Samvel Ter Sahakayan and Vitaly Sivuk. It is quite amazing that a tournament organized in the smallest state of India - Goa, has three leaders from Iran, Armenia and Ukraine. We have a pack of six players on 4.5/5 which include two Indians Deepan Chakkravarthy and R.R. Laxman. The B-group came to an end on the 16th of October 2018. The winner was Omkar Kadav from Maharashtra who took back home the prize of Rs.1,40,000 after he scored 9.0/10. Illustrated report from Goa with pictures by Amruta Mokal and Supriya Bhat. 

Goa GM 2018: What is Troitsky's line?

16/10/2018 -

A lot of theoretical endgames in chess are difficult to learn. One of them is the king + two knights versus king + pawn. It is a complex ending where a lot of people go wrong. In this article we explain to you this endgame with the help of a key game in the Group B of the Goa International Open Chess tournament. Also you can learn the art of calculation and imagination from Goa's first GM Anurag Mhamal. After four rounds we have eight leaders with the score of 4.0/4. They include Idani Pouya, Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, Deepan Chakkravarthy, Ziaur Rahman, Anurag Mhamal, Stany GA, Vitaly Sivuk and Sergey Kasparov. An illustrated report.