2nd edition of Goa GM International is here with a prize fund of Rs.53 lakh!

10/04/2019 -

The first Goa GM International 2018 was a big success. Over 1200 players participated at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium making it the biggest sporting event ever to be held on Goan soil. The good news for the Indian chess community is that the organizers have decided to continue the tournament and the second edition will be held from the 18th to the 25th of June 2019 at the same venue. 10th of April is the last date to avail the early bird discount. So don't miss it. In this article we bring you the experience of Beverly Mendonca, a chess player from Goa and also a talented artist, who played the 1st edition of the event. Check out her brilliant artistic impressions of Goa sprinkled with humour and creativity.

Gustafsson, Venkataraman and Kunte in a three-way lead in 19th BCC Open 2019

10/04/2019 -

Jan Gustafsson, Karthik Venkataraman and Abhijit Kunte are in a three-way lead at the conclusion of round 4. Gustafsson defeated his compatriot Gerhard Schebler in 35 moves. Karthik defeated IM Duong The Anh after the miscalculated an exchange sacrifice. WIM Luong Phuong Hanh declined a threefold repetition and eventually she lost against Kunte. Total 15 rounds of Blitz matches took place in 8 groups of 15 players each. Top two from each group advanced to the next stage where another round-robin match will determine the finalists. This report contains positions, games, photos. Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Shamkir 2019 Round 8: Carlsen's Sveshnikov helps him win Shamkir Chess 2019 with one round to spare

09/04/2019 -

When the penultimate round of Shamkir Chess 2019 began, Magnus Carlsen was half a point ahead of Sergey Karjakin. As the two rivals sat opposite each other, it was clear that Karjakin with the white pieces was going to go all out against the World Champion. Second place didn't interest the Russian. Beating the World Champion was his aim. He opened the game with 1.e4 and Carlsen responded with his favourite - the Sicilian Sveshnikov. Once Karjakin had decided to play a full-blooded fight, he had to take some risky decisions. That's when the World Champion showed his class. He sacrificed a pawn, brought his pieces into the attack and with magical play on the light squares, forced Karjakin to resign when the material was still even on the board! With this win Magnus won the Shamkir Chess 2019 with a round to spare!

19th BCC Open 2019 Round 3: India's strongest chess couple in the lead

09/04/2019 -

14 players are in the lead at the conclusion of round 3 of 19th Bangkok Chess Club Open 2019. All top seeds won their match with ease and cruised into the lead. Among the Indians, Deep Sengupta, Sriram Jha, Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi, Karthik Venkataraman, Abhijit Kunte and Neelash Saha are among the leaders. Top seed Nigel Short played some beautiful chess to score a win against the budding Filippino talent FM Alekhine Nourie. The Challenger section was pawned off with 100 players from 22 countries. The report contains positions, games and photos from round 3. Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Shamkir 2019 Round 7: Magnus Carlsen shows us why he is the World Champion!

08/04/2019 -

What's so special about Magnus Carlsen? Surely his style of play can be emulated? Come on, he is not that great! These are some of the things that we keep hearing very often. But if you have one look at games like the one played by Carlsen against Giri at the Shamkir Masters 2019, you understand why Carlsen is the greatest chess player on the planet right now and has been the World Champion for nearly six years now. In a sterile position, he came up with a plan which even an excellent prophylactic player like Giri couldn't think of. And Carlsen went on to build up a devastating attack. This was the only decisive game of round 7 and with it Magnus has increased his lead to a full point over Karjakin with 5.0/7.

19th BCC Open 2019: Poompong holds Short to a draw

08/04/2019 -

FM Poompong Wiwatanadate of Thailand managed to cause the first biggest upset when he drew with the top seed of the tournament GM Nigel Short in a topsy-turvy game. Among other upsets FM Alekhine Nouri of Philippines held GM Lalith Babu M R to a draw, Savige Colin B defeated GM Swapnil Dhopade, IM Lou Yiping lost to Mick Tobor and the Tournament Organizer IO Kai Tuorila held GM Dibyendu Barua to a draw. The report contains games, positions, photos and interviews. Photo: Shahid Ahmed

World Individual Championships for the Blind begin in Cagliari, Italy

07/04/2019 -

The 14th IBCA World Individual Championships 2019 for blind and visually impaired began on the 6th of April 2019 at Cagliari, Italy. The top four finishers of Indian National A 2019 are participating in the event. Kishan Gangolli, Aryan Joshi, Subhendu Kumar Patra and Krishna Udupa. In the first round Kishan was paired against the only GM in the field, the top seeded Marcin Tazbir. He fought valiantly, but in the end lost the game because of time pressure. Aryan Joshi lost his game to IM Piotr Dukaczewski. Krishna Udupa also lost his game. Subhendu Patra was the only Indian who scored on day one as he drew his game against an opponent rated 377 points above him. Report from Italy by Nanda Kumar.

Shamkir 2019 Round 6: Karjakin 30+ moves preparation grinds down Anand

07/04/2019 -

The last time Sergey Karjakin beat Vishy Anand in classical chess, he went on to win the Candidates and challenge Magnus Carlsen for the highest crown. In the sixth round of Shamkir Chess 2019, Karjakin once again beat Anand and joined Magnus as the leader at the top. It was a battle of tremendous opening preparation by both Karjakin and Anand as the players followed the game Aronian versus Caruana until move 31. Sergey had a new idea prepared and although the position was round about even, Karjakin's persistence won in the end and gave him the full point. The other decisive result of the day was Topalov beating Mamedyarov. We not only bring all of the games from round six, but also pictures from the rest day where all the top players indulged in Football, Basketball and simultaneous chess.

Ashwin, Muzzaffar and Kavin cause upsets in round 1 of 19th BCC Open 2019

07/04/2019 -

19th BCC Open 2019 was pawned off with 201 players from 34 countries including 17 GMs, 7 IMs, 5 WIM, 10 FM and 3 CMs. Top nine seeds had a smooth sailing but tenth seed Vasquez Schroeder Rodrigo of Chile got held to a draw by 13-year old Ashwin Hariharan of Singapore. Veteran Muzzaffar Ahmad of Malaysia defeated IM Haridas Pascua of Philippines and local talent Nattavutthisit Kavin of Thailand drew with GM Villamayor Buenaventura of Singapore among the upsets. The report contains photos, games and an interview from round 1. Photo: Shahid Ahmed

IM KS Raghunandan leads Dubai Open with 4.0/4 and a performance of 3166 Elo!

06/04/2019 -

IM Raghunandan KS is on fire at the Dubai Open 2019. He has scored 4.0/4 and en route to that score he has beaten three GMs, with a performance of 3166! Much more impressive than his result are his games. All his three victories against Ahmed Adly (2620), Vahap Sanal (2513) and Alan Pichot (2566) have been tremendously complicated, but Raghunandan managed to navigate the complexities to perfection. We have analyzed all three of his battles in this article. Out of the 164 players at the Dubai Open, 80 of them are Indians. We bring you a half way report with pictures from the venue by Niklesh Jain. 

ChessBase India Matrimony Portal - That was an April Fool's Prank!

06/04/2019 -

On 1st of April we released an article about the ChessBase India Matrimony Portal - a unique service offered by ChessBase India to the chess community, so that you can find your life partner who is also a chess player! While some of the people caught the story instantly as an April Fool's Day prank, many of the readers were fooled. Some of them even said that this was a great idea and should be implemented. In this article, we tell you all about ChessBase's tradition of April Fool's Day pranks and also the reason why we, at ChessBase India, indulge in 1st of April jokes. Lastly we want the chess community to understand the marrying a chess player is not the only way in which you can have a wonderful chess career, and so you will find many success stories in the article of chess players who tied the knot with someone who understood nothing about chess! 

Shamkir 2019 Round 5: Anand shows Dada'Giri', scores his first classical win against Anish

05/04/2019 -

Vishy Anand and Anish Giri have played 18 classical games against each other in the past. Their rivalry began in 2011 when 17-year-old Anish was taking on the World Champion Vishy at Wijk Aan Zee. Since then they have played at numerous events, including the Candidates in 2016, but Anand was never able to beat Anish in a classical encounter. Giri, on the other hand, had already scored two victories at Bilbao Grand Slam in 2015 and Norway Chess in 2017. These were the statistics until 4th of April 2019. That's the day when the 5th round of the Shamkir Masters 2019 took place and Vishy Anand scored his first classical win against Giri in dominating style! Hence the title Anand shows Dada'Giri' which translates to Anand showing his dominance on the board! 

IM Al Muthaiah wins 3rd Holi Cup Lakecity Open 2019

05/04/2019 -

IM Al Muthaiah of Tamil Nadu scored 7.0/8 and won 3rd Holi Cup Lakecity 2019. There was a six-way tie for the pole position. However, Muthaiah edged ahead due to a better tie-break score. This is Muthaiah's third tournament win in 47 days. Lokesh N, Manigandan S S, FM Matta Vinay Kumar, IM Somak Palit and Shubham are the other five players who also scored 7.0/8 and finished from 2nd to 6th position respectively. Top seed IM Sayantan Das finished at 7th position by scoring 6.5/8. Total 436 players including 7 IMs from all over India and a player each from Bangladesh and Nepal took part in this four-day 8-round Swiss League tournament. Total Rs 800000 cash prize was distributed among prize winners along with trophies and medals. Photo: Lakecity Chess

Shamkir 2019 Round 4: Anand teaches how to handle a premature flank attack

04/04/2019 -

Early flank attacks in the opening are quite stressful to handle if you are unprepared. Especially if you are facing a player like Ding Liren, who usually does his homework in great detail. Vishy Anand had the unpleasant task of finding the most accurate way to wriggle out of Ding Liren's preparation. And the Indian GM did so with great ingenuity and resourcefulness. In this report, we show you how in spite of being outprepared in the opening Anand managed to keep his cool and fend off the attack. The other interesting game of the day was Mamedyarov against Navara. The Czech No.1 was on course for victory when a very subtle endgame mistake made him split the point. We analyze all of this and more in our round 4 report from Shamkir Masters 2019.

Important AICF Central Council decisions of the meeting held on 24th of March 2019

04/04/2019 -

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) Central Council meetings are important for all the chess players of our country. The reason? The decisions made and implemented by AICF officials at this meeting will dictate the federation's policy and decision making throughout the year. 2019 is an extremely important year for Indian chess as two huge events are going to be held in the country - World Juniors (u-20) in Delhi and World Youth (u-18, u-16, u-14) in Mumbai. What are the criteria for Indian players to participate in these events? We tell you in this article. Apart from these certain decisions have been made for the National Teams and National School Championships. Finally, a request has been made to Indian Air Force to grant an honorary rank to Viswanathan Anand.

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