IIFL Wealth 02: calm before the storm?

by Priyadarshan Banjan - 30/01/2016

There were no eye-popping results or games in the show, but one look at the tournament hall and you can say that the chess future of our country is safe. The IIFL Wealth Junior tournament and Open is off to a solid start in Bandra with some special add-ons such as live commentary, video reporting, ambient venue, etc. ChessBase India brings you an illustrated report.

IIFL Wealth Mumbai Junior Championship 2016

The Junior tournament witnessed almost no major upsets as the higher seeds romped home by just destroying their opponents.

The second seed in the Junior event, ten-year-old Raunak Sadhwani (2104), looks barely taller than the black king!

Nine-year-old Gukesh D. (2041) played a mature endgame to outplay his lower rated opponent...

...Mumbai's Hriday Bhuta (1315)

Twelve-year-old Dhanush Raghav likes to look at the board from a higher vantage point

Top seed Mohammed Fahad Rahman (2278) of Bangladesh had absolutely no problems in defeating...

Alaina Vincent (1362) of Mumbai

Kiyarra Khaturia (1281)

Ananya Gupta (1467)

Tanishka Kotia (1650)

Mrudul Dehankar (1731)

Prachiti Chandratreya (1465)

Oh my God!

Looking at the board from a King's viewpoint...

Kriti Patel (1313) tried defending her position...

...but Luke Mendonca was always a step ahead and won.

Not sure who is playing black

Kush Bhagat (1102)

This boy is stressed about which way to recapture...

Ah! The pawn will do!

Commentary and analysis of some top games:

View the complete pairing for Round 03 here.

Complete results of Round 02.

Watch the games LIVE by clicking the above link.

IIFL Wealth Mumbai International Open 2016

Even in the Open section, the top seeds had absolutely no problems in dispatching their opponents; nevertheless, there were upsets here and there:

Th ever-solid Ojas Kulkarni (2000) held...

...IM Dinesh Sharma (2358) to a draw.

Swapnil Kothari (2025) was left fuming after losing to IM S. Nitin (2400)

Manush Shah (2003) is another solid player who is improving steadily. In the second round, he held IM Ravi Teja (2385).

IM Chakravarthy Reddy (2176) had a bad day at the office as he went down to...

...Akshay Halgannavar (1897) of Karnataka

Krishnater Kushager (1927) held IM Anup Deshmukh (2225)

Ranveer Mohite (1950) held IM Krishna Teja N. (2246)

Ketan Patil (1692) had enough resources to hold...

...Atul Dahale (2088)

Ashish Thatte (2100) is playing after quite a while and was left in tears as he managed to lose to...

...Karnataka's Likhit Chilukuri (1867), of all people.

Just outside the playing arena, the players can find snack and refreshment

Vijay Kumar of Doordarshan is managing the broadcast of games, despite a fractured hand

In the commentary room yesterday: IM Sagar Shah, IM Vishal Sareen and FI Praful Zaveri

The live commentary work in progress...

The experienced tag team of V. Vijayraghavan and India's Monroi (and now DGT even) man V.L. Anandh Babu

The PR team of Rajendra and Shirish Polakhare (in the left) and Chief Arbiter Vitthal Madhav at work

View the pairing for Round 03 here.

Complete results of Round 02.

Watch the games LIVE by clicking the above link.

Video Report by Vijay Kumar:

Watch the report by with comments by IM Sagar Shah, IM Vishal Sareen and FI Praful Zaveri

Note:

ChessBase India will sell products, specially tailored for Indian audience for the first time, at the IIFLW Mumbai tournament at Mount Litera School, Bandra.

The shop, that will sell soft copies, will be setup from 9.a.m. in the morning until 9.p.m. At 5.p.m IM Sagar Shah will be giving a lecture on how to use the new ChessBase Account (web based ten new features) to improve at the game!

The products on sale will be ChessBase Account, ChessBase 13, Megadatabase 2016, Fritz 15, Komodo 9, Vishy Anand DVDs Vol.1 and 2,Daniel King DVDs of powerplay 20,21,22, Parimarjan Negi's learn the modern scotch, Sagar Shah's Learn from the Classics, Tania Sachdev's improve your chess and Fritz and Chesster-learn to play chess.

Just to give you an example of how huge these discounts are:
ChessBase 13 download version cost 99.90 euros on the ChessBase website. That comes to Rs.7350. From the ChessBase India shop you can buy it for 2999/- only!

Photos for ChessBase India