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GCT Leuven: Anand finishes fifth in Blitz; So takes title despite final round loss!

17/06/2018 -

The final day of the Grand Chess Tour in Leuven was a complete barnburner. Wesley So's 1.5 point lead almost evaporated as lost in the very first round and was even caught in the lead by Sergey Karjakin, eventually. In the final round, So was being chased by Karjakin and Maxime Vachier Lagrave who were both only half a point behind. The crunch moment came when So lost his final round game and gave his chasers a chance to overtake. But then, MVL and Karjakin also lost, letting so take away the title! Meanwhile, Vishy Anand amassed 4.5 points on the final day to finished fifth in the blitz and eighth overall.

Batkhuyag Munguntuul crushes the Sicilian like a boss!

17/06/2018 -

The SBI Life AICF Women's Grandmaster Invitation tournament is very interestingly poised after seven rounds. Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova joined Guliskhan Nakhbayeva at the top after she defeated the woman in form Srija Seshadri. Although the game played by Gulrukhbegim was very nice, the honours for the best game of the day surely went to top seed Batkhuyag Munguntuul who defeated overnight leader Vo Thi Kim Phung in an excellent game from the white side of the Sicilian Defence. We set you test positions and ask you to solve them and see if you can play like the Mongolian!

Singh is King!

17/06/2018 -

With a rating of 2084, Arvinder Preet Singh started as the 26th seed at the World Amateur Chess Championships below 2300 that were held in Cagliari, Italy from the 22nd to the 29th of April 2018. He lost his second and sixth round and with a score of 4.0/6 it seemed as if it would be just another normal event. But the Punjab lad pumped himself up for the final stretch and scored three wins in the last three rounds. More importantly he defeated the existing leaders in their personal encounters and when the last round was over, Arvinder Preet Singh had become the World Amateur Champion!

GCT Leuven: Anand makes a nice comeback; So's lead narrowed to half

16/06/2018 -

Blitz is one of those time formats that unmasks the mortality of even the greatest wizards of the game of chess. In Leuven at the first leg of the Grand Chess Tour, the first day of blitz began with some ingenious attacks, mindboggling blunders and incredible saves. More than once, bigwigs like Anand, Aronian, So etc were seen leaving pieces en prise, hanging checkmate in one and missing elementary knight forks! We have an illustrated report on all the action. 

"Forced to wear a headscarf is violative of my human rights" - Interview with Soumya Swaminathan

16/06/2018 -

“Ideally Official Tournaments should be held in places where player's basic human rights are ensured”, says WGM Soumya Swaminathan after withdrawing from the Asian Nations Cup 2018 due to compulsory rule of wearing a hijab during the tournament. The Asian Nations Cup will be held from the 27th of July to 4th of August 2018 in Hamadan, Iran. Soumya has refused to travel to the tournament as she thinks that being forced to wear the hijab violates her human rights. This stand by Soumya which started as a small Facebook post has snowballed into all the leading newspapers and websites covering it. ChessBase India spoke with Soumya and lets you know all that is on her mind.

Nakhbayeva halted by Tokhirjonova, Srija plays like Mikhail Tal!

16/06/2018 -

This was the last double round day at the SBI Life AICF Women Grandmaster Invitation Round Robin that is currently in progress in Mumbai. And we saw a lot of action! Overnight leader Guliskhan Nakhbayeva looked untouchable at this event and was racing ahead with 4.0/4. She was stopped in her tracks by Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova. After six rounds we now have two leaders: Nakhbayeva and Vo Thi Kim Phung, both of 4.5/6. But the performer of the day was surely Srija Seshadri who first took advantage of Hagawane's plain oversight and in the evening played a beautiful Tal-like rook sacrifice to beat Divya Deshmukh. 

GCT Leuven Day 3: Anand finishes at the bottom; So wins the rapid

15/06/2018 -

On the final day of the rapid leg of the Grand Chess Tour in Leuven, Indian ace Viswanathan Anand failed yet again at making a comeback. Just like on day 1, he lost both of his first two games and made a draw in the final game of the day to finish on the bottom-most spot. His final round opponent, Wesley So, welcomed this draw, however, as it left him on the pole position, three points ahead of his nearest rival. Going into the blitz segment, Anand is going to have a tough time improving his tournament standing. An illustrated report.

A great initiative by AICF for women's chess in India!

15/06/2018 -

Spending on prize money of tournaments is not something that AICF would like to indulge in. But the current team in AICF led by Bharat Singh Chauhan have felt that the growth of woman chess in India is of paramount importance and hence have decided to sponsor the prize fund of SBI Life AICF Women's Grandmaster Round Robin event to the tune of 7.5 lakh. This is an investment in the future of Indian women's chess as six of our most talented youngsters get a chance to face six well-established international opponents and fight for their WGM norms. Four rounds have been completed and Nakhbayeva from Uzbekistan leads with a perfect 4.0/4. We have a detailed report with a video of the unique opening ceremony!

GCT Leuven Day 2: Anand continues to struggle with form

14/06/2018 -

On the second day of the Leuven Grand Chess Tour Rapids, Wesley So continued his dominance over the field scoring two wins and a draw yet again. The American number two is now up to 10/12, two points ahead of his nearest rival, Levon Aronian. Viswanathan Anand finally won his first game of the event on day two beating Fabiano Caruana in the sixth round. However, in his very next game, Anand blundered inexplicably in a drawn endgame against Maxime Vachier Lagrave. An illustrated report with games.

Harikrishna leads 2-1 against Navara at the CEZ Trophy in Prague

14/06/2018 -

It was going to be a 12 game rapid match between David Navara and Ding Liren in the capital of Czech Republic - Prague. However, Ding Liren met with an accident and injured his hip at the recently concluded Norway Chess. The organizers found a last minute replacement in India number two Pentala Harikrishna. Hari has recently shifted his base to Prague after marriage. On the first day, the Indian was clearly the better player as he scored a win and two draws to lead the match by a score of 2:1. We have the pictures, games and analysis in this report.

Leuven Grand Chess Tour Day 1: Anand's shaky start puts him at the bottom of the leaderboard

13/06/2018 -

Day one of the Grand Chess Tour Leuven Rapids turned out to be a disaster for the Indian ace, GM Viswanathan Anand. Out of his three games in the day, Anand lost the first two and drew in the third. In the very first round, Anand suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who conducted a brilliant attack on Anand's king to take home the full point. Against Anish Giri in the second round, Anand, even though a pawn down seemed comfortable but mishaps in the rook endgame

Farrukh Amonatov wins Mumbai Mayor's Cup 2018

13/06/2018 -

The final event in the circuit of three major tournaments in India ended with the 11th Mumbai Mayor's Cup 2018. The tournament was keenly contested, and quite a low scoring affair. The winners were GM Farrukh Amonatov from Tajikistan and Roeland Pruijssers from the Netherlands. Both of them scored 8.0/10. Three norms were made at the event - Rithvik Raja and Kiran Manisha Mohanty scored an IM norm, while Divya Deshmukh scored her final WIM norm becoming a WIM at the age of just 12 years and 6 months. A detailed pictorial report, with analysis and loads of videos. 

Praggnanandhaa misses a shot at his final GM norm in Schaakweek Apeldoorn

12/06/2018 -

After scoring his second GM norm, a couple of months ago at the Heraklion Fischer Memorial GM Norm tournament in Greece, IM R Praggnanandhaa continued his quest for the GM title at the 1st Schaakweek Apeldoorn closed round robin in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, after five rounds, the Indian wunderkind has lost his chance to score a GM norm. Out of his five games, Praggna has lost four and won one. We take an in-depth look at his performance so far. | Photo: Henk Vinkes/Schaakweek Apeldoorn

Sarthak Deshpande is the new youngest rated player of India

11/06/2018 -

On 1st June 2018, 5-year old, Sarthak Deshpande of Pune broke Nivaan Khandhadia's record of youngest rated player in India, exactly after one month. Sarthak broke the record at just 5 years and 11 months, few days shy from him turning 6. He hails from Pune just like Nivaan. Sarthak is trained by Mrunalini Kunte at Kunte's Chess Academy. Currently his world ranking among under 6 players is 11. He got his rating from Late Bharatbai Halkude Memorial 2nd All India Below 1600 Tournament in May 2018 held in Pune, by drawing with a two kids of ten and eleven years old, rated 1188 and 1178 respectively. In this report, we will get to know about little Sarthak and how he got his name into the record books of Indian chess. Photo: Deepa Deshpande

Judges in Canada are sentencing juvenile offenders to chess and the results are interesting

10/06/2018 -

In Alberta’s University of Lethbridge, an alternative initiative sees youth who commit non-violent crimes sentenced to 25 hours of chess instruction. Interesting!? On 24th of May, 2018 one of the world's emerging independent, not-for-profit media outlet "The Conversation" has published a very interesting article on youth offenders from Canada who are sentenced by the Judges to learn and play chess. All youth offenders who are involved in the criminal justice system are attending what’s known as the Chess for Life Program at Alberta’s University of Lethbridge as part of their sentence.