Express: Karthik Venkatraman and Sakshi Chitlange win National Juniors 2018

06/12/2018 -

The National Juniors 2018 came to an end in New Delhi from 28th November to 6th of December 2018. Top three players from both open and girls section will represent India at the World Juniors to be held next year in India! The winner in the open section was Karthik Venkatraman, the top seed, and the only GM in the tournament. In the girls section Sakshi Chitlange won the event by a half point margin ahead of Aakanksha Hagawane and Vantika Agarwal. In the open section Rakesh Kumar Jena and Nitish Belurkar finished second and third respectively. Express report by Jitendra Choudhary from the venue.

Straight from the heart - P. Karthikeyan shares his story of becoming a GM

06/12/2018 -

At the conclusion of the Third Saturday chess tournament in Novi Sad, Serbia, India got its 57th Grandmaster in Karthikeyan Pandian. In addition to finishing his much awaited final norm, the 28-year-old also finished joint first at the event. Two years back, Karthikeyan breached the 2500 rating threshold. Since he had completed all of his norms, many, including Karthikeyan himself, assumed that he had achieved the Grandmaster title. However, it was later discovered that there was a technical issue with one of his norms and, due to this, he was not conferred the Grandmaster (GM) title. It took two more years after this for Karthikeyan to score another norm and finally seal the title in his name. This was not an easy phase in his life and in this interview we catch up with the man .

One in a million - Darpan Inani, the strongest blind player of India - Part II

05/12/2018 -

Darpan Inani is the strongest blind player in India. Rated 2053, he has been a bronze medalist at the 2013 World Junior Championship in Belgrade. In 2010, he became the youngest player to win the National Blind Championship at the age of 16 years, a record which still stands. We caught up with Darpan for an elaborate interview. In this second part, Darpan discusses some of the high points of his career (the National Championship of 2010 and his bronze medal-winning performance at the World Junior Championship), his reasons for not being able to cross Elo 2100 and the role of his parents.

Countdown for IIFL 4 begins!

04/12/2018 -

IIFL is now a household name among the chess fraternity of India, thanks for the unflinching support from the IIFL Private Wealth - the one company which has become synonymous with chess in India. And now this grand event is a part of the 'Great Indian Chess Tour'. Pick any sport and you will always find a company backing it up financially to improve its infrastructure and standard. In chess, we have seen IIFL doing the same from the last three years. They have set a new standard and introduced their own flagship event, the Under-13 Championship, which is now the richest tournament for children in the world.  Once again, the IIFL International is here and is all set for its 4th edition which is much bigger than the last and with a new grand venue. In this article, Tournament Director, Praful Zaveri tells us about the forthcoming instalment of the event while also looking back at his experience from the previous editions.

World Youth U-16 Olympiad: India bags silver after an action-packed final round

04/12/2018 -

Team India was off to a wonderful start winning all of their first three games at the World Youth (Under-16) Championship in Konya, Turkey but their dream run was slowed down by losses in the fourth and the sixth rounds. Regardless, the team did not lose its morale. Round 7 onwards, they stacked up three back to back wins against high profile opponents like Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran to finish second on the podium. On board 1, Arjun Erigaisi won an individual silver thanks to his unbeaten 7.0/9. Sankalp Gupta was another Indian to take home a medal. Scoring 5 points out of his eight games, Sankalp finished with a rating performance of 2440 to clinch the bronze medal on board three. 

ACL Challengers League 2018: MCAA maintains lead, Intermezzo bounces back

03/12/2018 -

Maestro Chess Academy Attackers maintains their sole lead at the end of round 5 in ACL Challengers League 2018. Intermezzo, Royal Knight Chess Academy, d'pawn Chess Academy and Telugu Chess Warriors have qualified in the semi-finals. They all have qualified for ACL 2nd Super League which will take place in early 2019. MCAA made the tournament's first draw against MCAF. Intermezzo bounced back at the top with a win over RKCA and dpCA drew with their other lower rated team in the tournament. This report contains best games from round 5. Photo: CCCB/RKCA

Vishy Anand recaps Carlsen versus Caruana World Championship Match 2018

03/12/2018 -

The World Championship Match ended five days ago and we keep receiving mixed reviews from the spectators. While many of the viewers said that the match was dull and boring, we also have people who have opined that this was one of the best World Championships in terms of quality of play. When it comes to opinions, there can be no one better than five-time World Champion Vishy Anand. The legend has played innumerable matches for the highest title! He has been there and done that! Also he has played Carlsen in two World Championship Matches. It doesn't come as a surprise that his views were really appreciated by the chess world when we published a video on our YouTube Channel. The video has had over 82,000 views and in this article we have transcribed Vishy Anand's views along with the diagrams of the most important positions. 

India shines at the Western Asia Junior Championship 2018

03/12/2018 -

The Western Asia Junior Chess Championship was held from 16th November till 22nd November 2018 in the International Hotel Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There were 7 age categories for open and girls and more than 300 players from 11 western Asian countries took part in this grand event which had all the three format of the game. Our Indian players excelled in different categories and brought home 5 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze medals from classical, rapid and blitz championship. In this report we bring you a pictorial report of the event with all the medal winners from India. It also includes annotated games by IM Nubairshah Shaikh who won a gold in the under-20 blitz.

Karthik Venkatraman on becoming India's 55th Grandmaster

02/12/2018 - Karthik Venkatraman became India's 55th grandmaster after a tumultuous run at the Spilimbergo Open held in August this year. Having played amazingly in the first seven rounds, Karthik suffered a major setback in round 8. He lost his first game of the event to Baadur  Jobava. The loss seemed to have done more damage than that of a point as Karthik's GM norm chances significantly diminished after this. In this interview, Karthik talks about his mindset during the tournament, his hectic tournament schedule and his ultimate aim as a chess player. | Thumbnail image: Gerhard Bertagnolli

Get Ready for Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival 2018!

01/12/2018 -

Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival is slated to be held in Sitges, Barcelona, Spain from the 13th to the 23rd of December 2018. The event boasts of being one of the strongest open events in the chess world, headlined this year by the Russian grandmaster, GM Dmitry Andreikin as the top seed and includes a long list of strong participants in the fray. Interesting participants include the brilliant Vassily Ivanchuk and prodigious Nihal Sarin and R. Praggnanandhaa. Read this curtain raiser by Rupali Mullick to find out more about this upcoming event.

Kishan Gangolli and Jennitha Anto - the golden warriors of Indian chess!

30/11/2018 -

Narendra Modi, as we all know, is a busy man. However, on 16th of October he took out time from his busy schedule and met 10 chess players! Why? Well, these are the heroes of Indian chess who won a medal for our country at the Asian Paragames that were held in Jakarta, Indonesia from the 7th to the 12th of October 2018. This was the first time that chess was included in the overall Asian Paragames. The medals won by our physically disabled and visually challenged players would go to increase India's overall medal tally. From 72 medals that India won at the games, nine of them came from chess. We won two golds, five silvers and two bronze. Jennitha Anto and Kishan Gangolli are the golden duo for Indian chess! Chief Arbiter of the event R. Ananthram has sent us a detailed report. 

National Juniors 2018 kicks off in Delhi

29/11/2018 -

The National Juniors is an extremely important tournament in the calendar year. Top three players from this event qualify for the World Juniors 2019 in both the open and girls section. Hence, one can imagine that this is a springboard to greater glory. In 2018 we had GM Abhimanyu Puranik who won the silver medal at the World Juniors and made the country proud. Hoping for the continuation of this tradition, this year's National Juniors are being held in Delhi from 28th of November to 6th of December. In the open section we have GM Karthik Venkatraman who is participating and is the top seed. Priyanka Nutakki is the top seed in the girls section. A short opening report by Jitendra Choudhary.

Carlsen retains his World Championship title!

28/11/2018 -

The classical portion of the match ended with a 6-6 tie. In the tiebreak Magnus Carlsen showed his superiority as he won three rapid games in a row to become the World Champion. Fabiano Caruana tried really hard and matched Magnus in the classical portion, but in the rapid, he couldn't really keep up. This is Carlsen's fourth World Championship title. The first one was against Anand in Chennai, the second one against Anand in Russia, the third one against Karjakin in USA and now against Caruana in London. Magnus will turn 28 years old in two days from now and he has already been a World Champion for five years! What a champion!

ACL Challengers League 2018: RKCA and TCW cause major upsets in round 4

27/11/2018 -

Maestro Chess Academy Attackers and Royal Knight Chess Academy are the sole leaders in ACL Challengers League 2018 at the conclusion of round 4 in unrated and rated category respectively. Round 4 witnessed some major upsets as Royal Knight Chess Academy defeated d'pawn Chess Academy and Telugu Chess Warriors defeated Intermezzo 3-1 each respectively. RKCA maintained their lead, while Intermezzo slipped to the second position. In the unrated section, MCAA maintained their dominance as the sole leader by drawing with CCCB. This report contains the best games of round 4 and photos. Photo: RKCA/TCW

National Women's Championship: Bhakti Kulkarni clinches title in dramatic finale

26/11/2018 -

The final round of the National Women's Chess Championship was a dramatic affair. Overnight leader, Mary Ann Gomes suffered a sudden collapse as she blundered a full rook in an equal position. Bhakti Kulkarni, who was half a point behind, magically saved her game where she was a full piece down. In the end, both Mary and Bhakti were tied for first and it wasn't until tiebreaks were applied that Bhakti was declared the 2018 National Women's Champion.