16 Commonwealth Champions will be decided today!

After the penultimate round, this is how the standings look like:

Rank after round 8:

We have four leaders - G.Akash, Debashis Das, Lalith Babu and P. Karthikeyan. The tiebreak is buchholz and currently it G. Akash who has the best tiebreak, but Debashis and Lalith are not too far behind. Let's have a look at the all-important final round pairing:

Round 9 pairing:

Lalith Babu has always maintained that Debashis Das is his good friend! In the National Premier when Lalith took a quick draw in the last round, it was Debashis who defeated Aravindh Chithambaram to give Lalith the clear first place! But in the Commonwealth Championships 2018, friends will have to face off against each other. Lalith has the white pieces and in all probability he will play for a win. On the second board we have two strong IMs facing off against each other. Akash, who is back after a gap of two years, and P. Karthikeyan who hasn't been playing so well recently. Both of them have had a good event at the Commonwealth Championships 2018 and it remains to be seen who comes out on top.

After from these four guys on 6.5/8, we have another nine players of 6.0/8. S.Nitin has the best tiebreak and he is facing Abhijit Kunte in the last round. The last time these two met at the National Premier 2017, it was Nitin who came out on top. All the battles of players on 6.0/8 will be keenly contested because only if they win, do they have a chance to be on the podium with a medal.

Lalith Babu's handing of the position from the black side of the London System was quite instructive:

Nubairshah Shaikh played a little too recklessly in my opinion and soon landed in a lost position against G. Akash:

Deep Sengupta was up against Tania Sachdev with the black pieces. Deep experimented with the King's Indian Defence and managed to get a very good position. Here's Deep after the game, explaining to us how he beat his opponent:

One of the young talents who has done exceedingly well in this tournament is the 12-year-old from Kerala Jubin Jimmy. Jubin is already gaining 97 Elo points and crossed the Elo barrier of 2200. In this video he shows us his win over Sammed Shete from the 8th round:

If Jubin draws the last round and scores 6.0/9, he would be able to make his maiden IM norm. But his opponent Sankalp Gupta is in a must-win scenario to make his second IM norm. It's going to be an exciting battle, because at the end of the game one of the players would have definitely made a norm!

Under-8 open:

Bangladeshi top seed Neer Manon has played extremely well and seems all set to win the gold medal. He has beaten both Rosh Jain and Mitul KH.

Under-8 girls:

It's a battle between Maharashtra and Karnataka in the girls under-8. Shriyana Mallya and Sri Harini are from Karnataka while Hiya Shah and Shreya Hipparagi are from Maharashtra. It remains to be seen who goes back home with the gold!

Under-10 Open:

Arhan Anand seems to be the favourite as of now. But Jaidambareesh is an unknown commodity! It will be interesting to see who can win the gold in this section.

Under-10 girls

Anupam Sreekumar seems to be on track to becoming the Commonwealth Champion 2018 in the under-10 girls section

Under-12 Open:

Sreeshwan Maralakshikari has been flawless at this event, beating Leon Mendonca. He has the best chances of winning the gold medal.

Under-12 girls:

Under-14 Open:

Karthik Sai, has a great chance to win the gold medal ahead of the pre-tournament favourites Kushagra Mohan and Sambit Panda.

Under 14 girls:

Jyothsna L and Bristy Mukherjee are in the lead with Nityata and Rindhiya on 4.5 points. As 4.5 point players are playing the ones on 5, anything is possible in this group.

Under 16 Open:

Under 16 girls:

Under 18 Open:

Under 18 girls:

Under 20 Open:

Karthik Venkatraman has lost to Krishna Teja, so the latter has an edge, but it all depends on the two crucial games today. Karthik takes on Sidhant Mohapatra, while Krishna is up against Nubairshah Shaikh.

Under 20 Girls:

Jacob Aagaard's free lectures:

It was a great learning opportunity for players at the Commonwealth Championships 2018 to learn from the one of the finest trainers and authors of our time Jacob Aagaard. There were two lectures held on 2nd of July. The first one was from 4-5 p.m. and the second one from 9-10 p.m. Of course knowing Jacob well, it came as no surprise that the timings extended from 4-6 p.m. and 9-11 p.m.! Although nothing was charged from the players, Jacob gave his all and delivered some great knowledge on how his student Sam Shankland reached a rating of 2727. He also spoke about the mistakes made by Shankland in his games and the players learnt a lot from it.