Sitges is a coastal town in Spain's Catalonia region, southwest of Barcelona. Backed by the mountainous Parc Natural del Garraf, it's known for its Mediterranean beaches and seafront promenade lined with grand mansions. The city hosted a beautiful tournament with many Indians competing for norms and points. Atul Dahale brings you a richly illustrated report.
ChessBase 18 is an all-new program that helps you manage all your databases as an ambitious player. Mega Database 2025 has 11 million games with over 113,000 games annotated by masters. The cost of ChessBase 18 is Rs.4499/- and the cost of Mega Database 2025 is Rs.6499/- However, if you go for the combo the total amount comes to Rs.8999 (instead of 10,998/-) helping you save Rs. 1999/-.
The Czech Open held in Pardubice is one of those events that is just a joy to follow and see unfold. Chess is its greatest focus with a very strong open, followed by opens of all kinds for every variant. 32 Indians took part in the main event and Visakh N.R. registered a GM norm finished third. Check out our illustrated report.
On 23rd of July 2016, Neelakantan Narayanan died at the age of 62 years. Trying to emulate the play of Paul Morphy, Neelakantan was one of the most fierce attackers from India in the 90s. In this article, you will find some sparkling combinations that he used to beat players like Daniel King, Csaba Horvat, and Antoaneta Stefanova. How happy Neelkantan would have been to know that his game against Daniel King was studied by the great Garry Kasparov himself! Pravin Thipsay also tells us about the personal side of Neelakantan and how he helped to develop the chess in the city of Mumbai. A wonderful human being who will be sorely missed by the chess community. A heartfelt eulogy.
A captain cum coach could be more effective if he or she knows more about the players beforehand, says R.B. Ramesh. India huffed and puffed to reach fourth place in the tournament, behind Iran, Russia and Armenia. Could we have done better? What were the problems faced by the team? We have an illustrated report with comments.
July was a magical month for GM Dronavalli Harika — she climbed to the fifth position in the FIDE ranking list thanks to victory at the Chengdu Grand Prix 2016. What is more impressive is that there seems to have occurred a qualitative leap in her play, so things can only get better from this point. ChessBase's Niklesh Kumar Jain caught up with Harika for a brief interview.
Imagine you are a player rated 2000. How would you feel if one month later, your rating would be 2400+? Ojas Kulkarni from Bangalore, Karnataka, has pulled off something incredible in the bygone 37 days. He has jumped from 2000 Elo to 2405 Elo, in four tournaments, all part of the Catalonian circuit in Spain. We have a brief coverage with games.
This was the third time Vidit was competing in the annual invitational tournament of Lake Sevan in Armenia. The first time he played, back in 2014, he had won the tournament. But the task looked a tad bit onerous after the drawing of lots. The tournament remained exciting until the very end, when in the penultimate round, Sevian overstepped the time-limit handing over the game and the tournament to Vidit Gujrathi.
The Thyagaraj Sports complex in New Delhi witnessed a jam packed crowd on 25th of July 2016. The reason? It was the game between Dabang Delhi and Patna Pirates at the Pro Kabaddi League 2016. But what is its connection to chess? Our very own International Master Tania Sachdev was at the venue and sung the national anthem before the start of the game. A proud moment for every Indian chess player.
One of the better events in the Catalan circuit is the Sant Martí International tournament taking place in Barcelona, Spain. The average rating of the tourney was around 2200 Elo, including 12 GMs and 18 IMs. With a total of 140 players, 73 of them titled, the tournament was quite good for players searching for experience and ratings. GM Shyam Sunder lifted the trophy with 8.0/9 points. Atul Dahale has a detailed report with tons of analysis.
The 2016 Lake Sevan International Tournament began in Martuni, Armenia. The tourney is a 10-player round-robin with an average rating of 2629 and a prize fund of $9200, that is, approximately Rs. 6,18,000. Vidit won the tournament by tie-break scoring 6.0/9 points.
We have endeavoured, ever since we began producing our news reports and stories, to make Indian chess news readily accessible to everyone across the globe in one repository. ChessBase India is pleased to officially launch the much-awaited Online Shop for the residents of the subcontinent! Your favourite ChessBase products are now just a few clicks away. In this illustrated article, you will learn how you can create your own personal ChessBase India account and shop for the products!
The FIDE World Youth Chess Olympiad 2016 organized by NR Klub is taking place in Poprad, Slovakia, from July 21st to July 30th. 54 international teams have made it to the tournament to fight for the medals. We have an express report, with details to follow.
A handful of Indians has headed to the Czech Republic to compete in the Czech Open 2016 chess festival. The main event is the grandmaster tournament that began on 22 July, but prior to that, a rapid tournament was held with a very strong field replete with titled players — it was FIDE rated and formed a part of the ACP Tour. Two Indians delivered a memorable performance. An illustrated report.
When Judit Polgar retired from chess, it marked the end of an era the likes of which none could foresee, but that galvanized women chess for all time. She did not simply break the barriers of a highly prejudiced establishment, she shattered them with records that no male has come close to. Here is a profile with videos of her greatest triumphs.
In a world that seems to have gone mad, it was yet another act of terror that has almost left us numb after so many in succession. Gunmen had entered the Olympia mall in Munich, killing eight. The laws of probability said that even chess might someday become a casualty and today seemed like that day might have come as a massive chess event took place right there expecting over ten thousand children.