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Mumbai IIFLW 09: Gukesh wins the juniors, Maghsoodloo takes the open

09/01/2018 -

Parham Maghsoodloo and D. Gukesh won the open and under-13 section of Eka by IIFLIM Mumbai International 2017-18. While Maghsoodloo was leading and played it safe in the last round, Gukesh had to win his final round game against Rohith Krishna to become the champion. The young boy did so and went home with the winner's cheque of Rs.1,50,000. Parham was richer by Rs. 3,00,000. Two norms were scored at the tournament - IM norm for Arjun Erigaisi and WIM norm for Divya Deshmukh. We have the final round report with all the action and interviews with the winners.

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IIFLW Mumbai 08: Parham Maghsoodloo retains lead throwing Gupta out of title contention

07/01/2018 -

Going into the final round, GM Abhijeet Gupta has been thrown out of contention for the title prize by the Iranian GM Parham Magsoodloo who outwitted the tournament's top seed on board one of the IIFLW Mumbai International Chess tournament. Having tasted his first defeat in the previous round, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy came all guns blazing at the penultimate round yesterday and demolished GM Tran Tuan Minh in a Sicilian Najdorf. In the Junior section, Pranav Vijay with his win has taken a half point lead over the rest of the field but whether or not he will be able to maintain it until the end of the final round is something to be seen. An illustrated report on round 8.

Chess is physics, playing blindfold is quantum physics, blindfold simul is rocket science!

06/01/2018 -

The seventh round of Eka by IIFLIM International Chess tournament 2017-18 saw a very interesting event: an exciting blindfold simul starring GM Timur Gareyev! The Blindfold King was challenged by 12 young chess players, some of whom gave a very tough fight. Avathanshu Bhat, who was also in the simul, reported on the event. Timur not only played the simul scoring 10.5/12 (with 3 draws), he also won his classical game against a 2300+ opponent and then came to the commentary studio to explain his win in a 25 minute masterclass! At the end of the day all we can think is, where does the man get all this energy from?!

Let's hear it for Aruna too!

06/01/2018 -

Recently, Viswanathan Anand won the world rapid championship in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Not only that, he also won a bronze in the Blitz leg and became the only player in the Open segment to have won medals in both categories. Besides, out of the 38 games, he played in Riyadh, he lost only one! After his win, Mid-Day reporter, Manisha Mohite caught up with the Indian chess legend and his wife to talk about his win, his initial reluctance to play the tournament, his preparation and a lot more.

IIFLW Mumbai 07: Deepan slips while Gareyev shows his blindfold magic

06/01/2018 -

The biggest spectacles of day 7 of the IIFLW Mumbai International Chess Tournament was Timur Gareyev's blindfold simul. In the course of three hours, the blindfold king of the world had not only completed his 12 games but had also cycled 22 kms while doing it. Post this, when the antepenultimate round of the open event concluded, a new leader had emerged. Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo convincingly defeated the tournament leader Deepan Chakkravarthy to take sole lead. After his loss, Chakkravarthy, along with four others is in the joint-second position with four other players. Round 7 report. 

IIFLW Mumbai Round 6: Deepan and Abhijeet pull off a miracle!

04/01/2018 -

The sixth round of Eka by IIFIM Mumbai International Chess tournament 2017-18 turned out to be a nail-biting affair. Overnight leader, Deepan Chakkravarthi won a crazy game against Adam Tukhaev to retain his tournament lead. GM Abhijeet Gupta had to walk a tightrope in his game against Shakil Abu Sufian but managed to pull out a win while 11-year-old Pranav held Deviatkin to a draw. In the Juniors' group, although the draw between the leaders, Aaryan Varshney and Nikhil Magizhnan was an exciting one, it allowed three more players to catch up with them. We have a report with games, pictures, and analysis. 

Looking back at 2017: Top achievements of the year

04/01/2018 -

2017 was a year full of achievements for Indian chess. It was this year that Adhiban made his first appearance at Tata Steel Masters, an elite event at the championship. Both R Praggnanandhaa and Nihal Sarin reached 2500 Elo, this year. 2017 also saw India get its 50th GM. But the best was saved for the last: Anand won the world rapid title for the 12th time in his career! In this report, we will take a look at 10 of the biggest feats Indians have achieved in the field of chess.

Mumbai IIFLW 05: Deepan Chakkravarthi takes sole lead

04/01/2018 -

Leaders have emerged in both Juniors and Open section of the IIFLW Mumbai International Chess tournament after the conclusion of the fifth round. While Deepan Chakkravarthi took the lead in the open section, Aaryan Varshney is leading the pack in Juniors. Both Deepan and Aaryan won their fifth round game with the black pieces to take the lead. While Deepan defeated IM S Nitin in a French Defence, Aaryan managed to trick Om Kadam in a middle game with opposite coloured bishops. On board 13 in the open group, GM Timur Gareyev won sensationally against WIM Srija Seshadri to register his third consecutive win deploying the King's Gambit. Round 5 report.  

Meenakshi's advice to all unmarried girls

04/01/2018 -

Meenakshi Subbaraman was one of India's top women players. She became a WGM in 2004. The WGM from Chennai had not played active chess for quite some time but decided to make a comeback by preparing hard for the National Premier. With a 15-month-old-son, a family to take care of and a job in Air India, things were not going to be easy. But Meenakshi proved that she was capable of achieving was she dreamt by very nearly winning the title. By losing the last two rounds she was relegated to the fifth spot. In the post-tournament interview, Meenakshi had great pearls of wisdom to share with the chess community, especially young girls. Nongsha Angom sends us the transcript.

Dalit protests disrupt IIFLW Mumbai; round 5 postponed to 6.30 p.m.

03/01/2018 -

The fifth round of the Eka by IIFLIM Mumbai tournament 2017-18 has been postponed to 6.30 p.m. IST after the Dalit community declared a bandh (a general strike declared by a political party or community) on Wednesday. Even though the round for the U-13 category -- which was scheduled in the morning -- went smoothly, problems have started to surface with regard to conducting the afternoon round for the open category. We have an official statement from the Tournament  Director, FI Praful Zaveri and will be updating this page as and when more information is available.

Mumbai IIFLW Round 4: Tactics, brilliancies and lucky escapes

03/01/2018 -

Another intense day came to a close yesterday after the fourth round of the EKA by IIFLIM Mumbai International 2017-18. The day began with some players stuck in Mumbai's traffic due to the Dalit protests in the city. As many as six players from the open section had to forfeit their games due to this. But once the games went underway, some brilliancies, some daring but dubious tactics and some lucky escapes were witnessed. An illustrated report with games and analysis.   

Suvrajit Saha wins All India Rating at Durgapur

03/01/2018 -

Suvrajit Saha of Railways wins CSIR CMERI Diamond Jubilee All India Open FIDE Rated Chess Tournament convincingly with a score of 7.5 points out of 8 rounds. This was his first tournament win in over a year and first open rating tournament win in a long while. He made a fantastic start by winning all his first seven games and needed just a draw in the last round to become champion. The tournament also witnessed the participation of IM Neeraj Kumar Mishra who scored 7 points and finished at 3rd position. This report contains a game analyzed by the champion and a few photographs from the event by Dr. Himadri Roy.

Mumbai IIFLW U-13 and Open Round 3: A day of many upsets!

02/01/2018 -

The accelerated pairings ended in the open section. The games were supposed to be one-sided, but it didn't turn out that way. The higher seeds had to work really hard against players rated 500 to 600 points below them to win their games. In the under-13 section, the ratings don't really matter. On every other board, you can see the lower rated player holding or beating the higher rated opponents. We bring you some of the upsets that took place at the third round of the tournament. Apart from this ChessBase India founders Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal are at the venue, and this is your chance to analyze your game with them.

Mumbai IIFLW Open Round 1+2: Beware of the top board!

01/01/2018 -

The setting of the EKA by IIFLIM 3rd Mumbai International Open 2017-18 is bit unusual. You have this big stage on one side of the playing hall and there is only the top board placed on it. Rest of the players are playing in the normal playing arena. However, we have found out that it is not easy to be the fancied player and play on the top board. In the first round, Abhijeet Gupta very nearly lost to Kiran Manisha Mohanty and in round two Timur Gareyev had to bite the dust against Adham Kandil. Ivan Rozum will be seen in action on the top board today and it will be interesting to see if he can maintain his pole position. 

3rd Mumbai IIFLW under-13 Round 1+2: It's a tournament with life!

31/12/2017 -

When someone asks which is highest prize money junior tournament in the world, people tend to think it must be held somewhere in USA, Europe or the middle-east. Turns out it's held in India, in the financial capital of the country - Mumbai. This year the IIFLW under-13 International is being held from the 29th of December to 7th of January 2018. The top seed is D. Gukesh (2362) who seems to be playing one tournament after another absolutely non stop. He will be facing stiff competition from the likes of Pranav, Leon, Anuj, Divya and the others. In this report we bring to you the entire action from rounds one and two along with some excellent pictures by Amruta Mokal.

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