CANDIDATES SALE IS LIVE
Use code: CANDIDATES to get 20% off on popular productsShop now!
Shop now!
Ayush Sharma from Madhya Pradesh dominated the field at the 4th Anniversary Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club Rapid Rating Tournament. Ayush scored a perfect 9/9 points to win the Rapid event. FM Om Kadam scored 8/9 points to secure 2nd place. 8 players scored 7.5/9 points, but IM Akshay Borgaonkar secured the 3rd place on better tiebreak score. In the Blitz tournament, GM Abhimanyu Puranik scored an unbeaten 8.5/9 points to finish in first place. Kartavya Anadkat, Mithrabha Guha, and WIM Mrudul Dehankar scored 8/9 points to secure 2nd to 4th places respectively. The event was organized by ChessBase India from 28th February to 1st March at Phoenix Marketcity, Kurla. Photos: Omkar Awale and Tanmesh Mokal
Chess has been a popular game for centuries now. It has gone through many revolutions, which has improved the game over these years. Recently, a revolution has started. Championed by Magnus Carlsen and fueled by the recent high-profile "FreeStyle" tournaments, Chess960 (Fisher Random) is taking the world by storm. It strips away memorized opening theory and forces players to think creatively from move one. The chess community is ready for this shift. But the chess developer's community isn't.
Dreamhack Rapid and Blitz 2025 will take place from 31st Oct to 2nd Nov in Hyderabad, Telangana. Total ₹500000 prize fund is up for grabs, ₹300000 for Rapid and ₹200000 for Blitz. Entry is FREE for GM, IM, WGM and WIM. For everyone else, entry fee is ₹1391 for both events. This tournament is unlike any other as it takes place inside a gaming convention, which means loud music and noise will be there throughout the day. So if you haven't registered yet, do it right away. Whoever can block out the noise, focus on their game, will win big and become the champion.
Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club in Mumbai now hosts a year-long Grand Prix series, where the regular 4th Saturday monthly blitz tournaments, now award GP points to the top 10 finishers. After 11 cycles, the top 12 compete in a March 2026 Grand Prix Finale featuring higher cash rewards and a grand prize for the winner. The player with the highest total points is crowned Player of 2025-26, celebrating their consistency and strength in the club’s most competitive season yet. We are already six months into the Grand Prix events and have a leaderboard coming up! Read more about this and how you can be a part of it in this article. Photos: ChessBase India
Winning a game is more about how you play than the result itself. India's 86th Grandmaster Srihari L.R. shows us exactly how it's done through his games. It's your smart moves that matter more than the flashy ones! In this article, we feature some of his favourite games that he has personally annotated for our readers. Take a peek into the mind of a Grandmaster as he shares his thought process during the game. Photo: Aditya Sur Roy
The 3rd edition of the Silver Jubilee Queenstar Open International Rating Chess Championship 2025 is back. It will take place from 13th August to 17th August in Gampaha, Sri Lanka. It boasts a total prize fund of LKR 2.5 million (approx. Rs. 7,13,645). There is no entry fee for FIDE-titled players. However, there are special conditions for foreign players rated higher than 2400. The event will feature both Classical and Blitz sections. The Blitz Champion will receive Rs. 60,000, while the Female Blitz Champion will be awarded Rs. 25,000. In the Classical section, the overall winner will take home Rs. 2,50,000, and the Female Champion will receive Rs. 1,00,000. Check out the article to learn how you can participate. Photo: Tournament Brochure
Sridhar has been a copywriter for over 30 years. Words have always been his thing. But recently, he stumbled upon a new dictionary. He discovered it not in a library, but on a chessboard. He wanted to share it with us in the form of a poem. He shares how chess has slowly become a part of his everyday language. In the way he thinks, feels, and learns, not just in moves. This beautiful poem will make you realise that it's never too late to fall in love with something new.
It’s very rare to find a chess player who is pursuing his own goals as well as helping others to do the same. Akhilesh Nagare scored his first IM norm at the XII Torneo Internacional Cidade de Pontevedra "Masters" Grupo A Tournament. The tournament was held between 24th July – 30th July in Pontevedra, Spain. He along with Shashank Dhagdhage, started their online chess academy, Phoenix Chess Club in 2023. They have trained more than 150 students so far and continue to share their passion for the game. ChessBase India had an opportunity to speak with Akhilesh after his achievement. Read the article to learn more about Akhilesh’s journey. Photo: Chess.com India
Teaching chess to new comers of the game requires the trainer to focus on two things - 1. What to teach? 2. How to teach? With regards to point no.1 it is extremely important to have the curriculum prepared beforehand, so that the trainer can use his own experience and judgement to make the material interesting for the students. With this in mind Teach Chess India has come up with Level 1 of the curriculum which would help a trainer to teach a student who knows absolutely nothing about chess.
7th edition of National School Chess Championship 2018 started in the capital city of Odisha, Bhubaneswar. The tournament was inaugurated in presence of Mr.Achyuta Samanta, founder of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology. The magnitude of this event is huge as this is the biggest school level national championship in Indian chess. From here, you can spread the awareness of chess all over the country. The tournament is taking place at the exact same place where World Junior Chess Championship took place last year. ChessBase India will bring you unparalleled coverage of this event. Photos and captions by: Niklesh Jain
The final round of Tata Steel Chess was a relatively calm one for the leaders in both categories. With the white pieces, Vidit Gujrathi avoided any mishap in a Queen's Gambit against Jorden van Foreest and agreed to a 24 move draw in the Challengers. This put the onus of winning on Korobov, who was in the run for the title. The Ukrainian GM failed and went down against Dmitry Gordievsky. In the Masters, leaders, Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri both settled for solid draws against Sergey Karjakin and Wei Yi respectively, forcing a playoff which the reigning world champion won quite comfortably. An illustrated report on the final round.
The penultimate round of Tata Steel Chess saw some thrilling action. In the Masters, Anish Giri and Magnus Carlsen overtook the third co-leader beating Adhiban Baskaran and Maxim Matlakov, respectively. Mamedyarov, on the other hand, shocked everyone with a mere 12-move draw against Gawain Jones. Another serious contender, Viswanathan Anand also reduced his chances of winning the title prize to a minimum with his draw against Wesley So. But the best result for Indian fans came in the Challengers' group where Vidit Gujrathi scored a crushing win against Olga Girya and is now standing at the brink of winning the title prize having overtaken Anton Korobov on the leaderboard. Round 12 report.