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Belt and Road Open: Will Ganguly take home US$ 50,000?

03/08/2019 -

The Belt and Road International Open is taking place from 28th July to 7th August in the Changsha city of Hunan Province, China. It is a nine rounds swiss event following a time control of 90 minutes with 30 seconds increment from move 1. Strong Grandmasters such as Wei Yi, Yu Yangyi, Le Quang Liem, Amin Bassem, Maxim Matlakov, Francisco Vallejo Pons, Arkadij Naiditsch, David Anton Guijarro, Evgeniy Najer are competing for a whopping first prize of 50,000 USD. After five rounds the tournament has found four leaders namely, Ivan Cheparinov, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Wang Hao, and Amin Bassem. In this comprehensive report we bring you the glimpses of the most important moments from rounds 1 to 5.

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The Madras Tiger is still swift and agile!

02/08/2019 -

Vishy Anand was absolutely in his element on the final day of the Paris Grand Chess Tour 2019. He played sublime chess, won four games against strong opponents, won the blitz tournament and finished second in blitz + rapid combined. For the 49-year-old Vishy, this was a tremendous performance as he edged out many of his speed specialist rivals like Grischuk, Nakamura, Nepomniactchi and others. In this report we pay special attention to seven of Anand's wins in blitz and try to understand what helped Vishy perform at this very high level. Anand also gained 60 Elo points, which takes his blitz rating to 2790. He is now 11th in the world rankings. A detailed report from Paris along with some excellent pictures by Lennart Ootes.

Tabatabaei wins Biel Masters 2019

02/08/2019 -

Iran no.3 GM M. Amin Tabatabaei scored 7.0/9, finishing a half point ahead of a pack of ten players who finished at 6.5/9, and won Biel Master Tournament 2019. Tabatabaei did not have the perfect start as he lost his third round game against GM Athanasios Mastrovasilis of Greece. GM Gata Kamsky of USA and Alexander Donchenko of Germany shared 2nd position as they had all their tie-break scores same. GM Abhimanyu Puranik had the best finish among Indians as he scored unbeaten 6.5/9 with a performance rating of 2693 and secured tied 2nd position. GM G N Gopal had the next best finish from India as he scored 6.0/9 and secured tied 3rd position. Photo: Simon Bohnenblust / Biel Chess Festival

IM Al Muthaiah wins 6th Kurukshetra Open 2019

01/08/2019 -

IM Al Muthaiah continues his phenomenal run in 2019. He gets lucky and wins 6th Kurukshetra Open by scoring 8.0/10, finishing first in tie-breaks. A pack of six players including the champion finished at 8.0/10. They are - IM R Balasubramaniam, GM Saptarshi Roy Choudhury, IM Somak Palit, FM Joydeep Dutta and IM Neeraj Mishra. They were placed 2nd to 6th respectively. This is his second consecutive tournament win in Assam in just 10 days. In both tournaments, Muthaiah drew with Joydeep with the same color black in the final round. Photo: IA Asit Baran Choudhury

Vidit's zeal and Shankland's escape artistry in peerless Final Act!

31/07/2019 -

After winning a tournament, players usually take a quick draw in the last round to go and celebrate. Not Vidit! He fought tooth and nail and managed to outplay Maghsoodloo in a Reversed King's Indian as Black to end the tournament a whopping 6 points clear of his nearest competitor! Sam Shankland was lost for the majority of an exchange up endgame against Leko, but somehow survived to take 2nd and restrain Leko to 3rd. Georgiadis thumped Jorge Cori's indecisive play with a piece sacrifice and won an attacking beauty, while Bogner and Abdusattorov played 'correct' chess throughout the game to end their tournament peacefully. A comprehensive report from Biel by Tanmay Srinath.

NEW: Sergei Tiviakov: Queen’s Indian Defence – The Modern Approach

31/07/2019 -

Eight years have passed since the creation of the DVD "No Fear of 1.d4 (Volume 1)" in which Sergei Tiviakov, among other things, explained how to play the Queen’s Indian Defence with Black. Now the moment has come to update the readers with the latest news and trends in this important opening. In his new video series, Tiviakov presents a complete repertoire for Black against the Queen’s Indian Defence. 

Upcoming tournaments in August 2019

30/07/2019 -

The month of August is absolutely stacked. National Youth starts off on the very first day of the month, followed by Abu Dhabi Chess Festival from 2nd August. National under-9 pawns off on 3rd, then Athens of the East GM tournament makes their debut on 10th. Grand Chess Tour brings their fourth rapid and blitz tournament in Saint Louis on 10th August, followed by star studded Sinquefield Cup starting on 15th August. World Cadets take place in two different location this time, Belarus and China. Hyderabad hosts their first GM tournament from 20th, the very same day National Amateur also sets in motion.

Vidit storms to 1st Biel Title with a round to spare!

30/07/2019 -

He's done it! Vidit Santosh Gujarathi dominates the Biel Chess Festival 2019 and wins it with a round to spare! Today he pressed for 41 moves against Abdusattorov, but decided to take a draw after his tournament victory was assured with Shankland's draw against Bogner. Sam was considerably worse out of a Grunfeld, but his opponent Bogner seemed to be in a peaceful mood, and they ended up splitting the point. Leko took no time in recovering from yesterday's loss, crushing Cori with an elegant exchange sacrifice in the late middlegame. Georgiadis missed a huge chance to put Maghsoodloo under pressure, and had to fight to split the point. An extensive report from Biel by Tanmay Srinath.

Indomitable Samarth Rao wins silver at the World Juniors for the disabled 2019

30/07/2019 -

The 3rd edition of FIDE World Junior Chess Championship for the disabled took place from July 9th to 15th in Cherry Hill of New Jersey, USA. Sixteen players from eight different countries under the age of 20 had taken part in the event. Among them India's Samarth J Rao secured an overall second place with a score of 5.5/7 and won the physically disabled section of the tournament. 19 years old Samarth is more than 75% disabled and is fully dependent on others for his day to day life activities. But over the years, despite having such impossible limitations, he has trained hard in chess to become one of country's strongest disabled players. Today, with this article we wish to congratulate him for his latest achievement at the World Junior event and also thank him for being an inspiration to countless chess aspirants of the country.

The ravishing stratagems of Fritz Emil Giegold!

29/07/2019 -

The eminent German composer Fritz Emil Giegold specialized in creating problems that strikingly lacked variations. In a typical Giegold composition all Black moves would be forced and White's play would exhibit one after another stunning paradoxes. It is astonishing how much depth he could capture in a single neat mainline spanning just few moves. Today in this article, the author Satanick Mukhuty, takes you on a little trip into Giegold's esoteric mind and unravels some of his lucid yet eccentric masterworks that made him one of the most loved composers of his day. 

Vidit's imaginative pawn sacrifice stuns Bogner as White truimphs in all games!

29/07/2019 -

Change is never pleasant, but when one succeeds in expanding his skill set the results are often staggering - ask Vidit Gujarathi! His attacking masterclass over Bogner sees Vidit  just 3 points away from his 1st Biel title! Sam Shankland was a surprise victim today - Jorge Cori played splendidly in a reversed French structure to hand the American a potentially decisive loss and come closer to the coveted 2700 mark. Abdusattorov came back from the brink to stun Georgiadis, while Leko blundered deep into the endgame to switch places with Maghsoodloo in the points table. Tanmay Srinath analyses all the instructive moments in a comprehensive report from Biel.

Vishy Anand is not going to give this one up easily!

29/07/2019 -

Vishy Anand did the hard riding on day one and put himself in lead with 5.0/6. Now on day two it was important to keep drafting ahead and not to burn out. This is exactly what happened. Anand drew all his three games and kept himself in the race for the title with a score of 8.0/12. He now trails MVL, who is on 9.0/12. Fabiano Caruana, who was the other leader at the end of day one, lost two games and was pushed down to the fifth spot. As for Anand, he held an advantage in all three games against Grischuk, Nakamura and Duda. He wasn't able to convert them. In this article we check out these three games of Anand and also bring you some beautiful pictures captured from the venue by Lennart Ootes.

Praggnanandhaa wins Xtracon Open 2019, Vaishali makes her maiden GM norm

28/07/2019 -

India's wunderkind 13-year-old GM R Praggnanandhaa started out Xtracon Open 2019 as the 21st seed, scored an unbeaten 8.5/10 at a performance rating of 2741, to win the tournament convincingly. He finished a half point ahead of the pack of five players who were all higher rated than him. His sister WGM R. Vaishali also performed admirably by scoring 7.5/10 and scored her maiden GM-norm and second IM-norm. She is the only woman to have finished in top 25 in the tournament. One of the newest IM's of India, 11-year-old Bharath Subramaniyam H also made his presence felt, by finishing at 16th ahead of 11 other GMs and beating two 2600+ opponents. Photo: Amruta Mokal

Attacking Monday Mornings with Sohan Phadke Part II - The Pin

28/07/2019 -

Fide Master Sohan Phadke is well-known in the Indian Chess circle for his aggressive style of play. Over the course of more than two decades, he has invented unique attacking principles and techniques of his own. In the series "Attacking Monday Mornings with Sohan Phadke" he brings to you some of these "secret" recipes. This is a weekly series of five videos that will be published on every Monday at 8 a.m. from 15th July onwards. Sohan would like you to appreciate the art of attack better and become a stronger player through these videos. Here are the positions of part-II of the series which deals with the theme of Pin. Try to solve them and then you can check out the video for the solution. 

Valourous Vidit sets Biel on fire with an astounding 11.0/14 in blitz!

28/07/2019 -

After the Rapids, one felt that Vidit was not playing his best chess. But his play improved towards the end of rapids and in the classical event! After dominating the first 4 rounds of the classical, he now razed the field in Blitz with a powerful 11.0/14! His victory in this section followed a well known pattern - against the bottom 4 players he was absolutely ruthless with 8.0/8(!) and held his own against the remaining 3 by breaking even (3.0/6). Sam Shankland played superbly as well, but a last round loss from a completely winning position ruined his chances, and he now trails the two players race by a point with 3 Classical games left to play. An exhaustive report from Biel by Tanmay Srinath. 

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