How chess helped Bhavesh through his battle with cancer

Imagine a passion that stays with you through every chapter of life. A passion that is there when you are a child discovering the world, when you are searching for direction, when life suddenly becomes uncertain, and when you are trying to find your way back again. For Bhavesh Vyas, that passion is chess. It became a source of comfort, connection, and hope through some of the most challenging moments of his life, including a battle with cancer at the age of 22. Read on to discover how chess helped Bhavesh navigate life's toughest challenges and find joy again.

How to organize a Big Chess Camp in your area!

What does it take to teach people how to play chess? Turns out, not a lot! With the help of some volunteers and a few sheets of paper, you too can take chess to multiple people. Sounds too good to be true? ChessBase India and Teach Chess India will help you understand how you can organize the Big Chess Camp in your area, to promote and push the game of chess forward! Read on to know how this works.

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4th Anniversary of Phoenix ChessBase India Club Rating: Ayush dominates in Rapid, Abhimanyu shines in Blitz

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

India's International Master

Call for Developer Volunteers: Adding FreeStyle Chess Support for Chess Community

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 & Blitz 2025: Lightning Chess, Thunderous ₹5,00,000 Prize Pool

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.

Grand Prix events at Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club!

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

How India's 86th Grandmaster Srihari L R outsmarts his opponents

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 starts from 13th August

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

Can chess change the way you think?

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.

Full-time player and trainer, Akhilesh Nagare scores his first IM norm

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 

Teach Chess India Syllabus Level 1

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.  

Privacy Policies of the ChessBase India App

Privacy policy of the ChessBase India App.

7th National School Chess Championship 2018 starts

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