Chennai 2018 Round 9: Can Timur Gareyev stop Ivan Rozum?

24/01/2018 -

Ivan Rozum is on fire at the 10th Chennai International 2018. He beat GM R.R. Laxman and moved to the sole lead and is ahead of the entire field by one full point! It seems as if the Russian will win this event. But things are not so simple. First of all, he has the black pieces against top seed Timur Gareyev and secondly his tiebreak is not so great. In the ninth round there were quite a few draws on top ten boards, but there were a few upsets with Marcos Llaneza getting the better of Adam Horvath and Sidhant Mohapatra beating GM Tran Tuan Minh. Report from Chennai.

Tata Steel Chess 09: Giri takes sole lead

24/01/2018 -

Round nine of Tata Steel Chess was a rather peaceful affair with six out of the seven games drawn in the Masters' segment but the one game that ended decisively brought a new sole leader -- Anish Giri. Giri was caught off guard by Matlakov's pawn gambit in the Reti but managed to keep things under control and eventually register a nice victory while his co-leaders, Magnus Carlsen and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov were held to draws by Kramnik and Anand respectively. In the Challengers, both leaders Vidit Gujrathi and Anton Korobov drew their games. Korobov, who played against Harika Dronavalli in round 9 had to walk on tightropes before he could wriggle out with a draw. We have a report with pictures and analysis. 

Chennai 2018 Round 8: Deepan and Laxman play a crazy game of chess!

24/01/2018 -

There are days in chess when the quality of the game takes precedence over the result. Eighth round at the Chennai International 2018 was one such day! Deepan Chakkravarthy playing with the white pieces complicated the position to such an extent that there was no coming back. Laxman held his nerve, took advantage of Deepan's inaccuracies and scored a win. He now leads the tournament with 7.0/8 along with Ivan Rozum. Ivan beat his Ukrainian opponent Adam Tukhaev. Round nine will see this interesting clash on the top board between Rozum and Laxman. In the round eight report we have a detailed analysis of the Deepan vs Laxman encounter. 

Prague Open 2018: Raahul VS scores his second IM norm

23/01/2018 -

The Czech Tour 2018 consists of 11 tournaments that will be held over the entire year. One of the biggest events of this tour is the Prague Open which was held in Prague, the capital city of Czech Republic, from the 10th to the 19th of January 2018. The tournament was organized in exemplary fashion by Jan Mazuch and his team. GM Milan Pacher of Slovakia won the tournament with a score of 7.5/9. The biggest achiever for India at this event was 15-year-old Raahul VS who scored his second IM norm. He gained 60 Elo points and finished fifth. In a must-win last round game he beat a 2437 opponent. We have video interviews, photographs and analysis from Prague by Prashant Mullick.

Diptayan wins Tata Steel All India Rapid Rating

23/01/2018 -

GM Diptayan Ghosh wins Tata Steel All India Open Rapid Rating Chess Tournament 2017 which was full of 4 GMs and 8 IMs. The tournament witnessed various strong battles between two different generations in the official rapid event time control. The tournament was so close that until the last round, there was a five-way tie at 7 points each, it was difficult to predict who the champion would be until all games were finished. Diptayan defeated IM Suvrajit Saha in the last round and the top two boards drew their games, that made sure Diptayan solely finish at 8 points and be declared as the champion. We have photos and videos from the event by Shahid Ahmed.

Chennai 2018 Round 7: Can an Indian win the Chennai International 2018?

23/01/2018 -

The Chennai International 2018 had three leaders at the start of the seventh round. By the time it ended the number of leaders had increased to four. Deepan and Tukhaev drew their game in the Petroff. Ivan Rozum managed to beat Karthik Venkatraman, while Laxman got the better of Ravi Hegde. Indian young talents Arjun Erigaisi and Pranav Venkatesh did not let their opponents Tiviakov and Atalik go away with the full point. As we approach the last three rounds of the tournament, we are in for a treat as just about anyone can win this event! Bhopal was won by Nguyen Hoa, Mumbai by Maghsoodloo and Delhi by Naiditsch. Can an Indian win the Chennai International? 

Tata Steel Chess 08: Ain't no rest for the leaders

22/01/2018 -

After seven rounds at the Tata Steel Chess, clear leaders had emerged in both groups. But round 8 made it clear that even though the leaders in both segments were ahead by a full point, there ain't no rest for them. In the Masters' group, sole leader, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was strategically outplayed by Anish Giri in a Symmetrical English. Magnus Carlsen blundered a full piece against Gawain Jones but still managed to win the game somehow. In the words of Giri, Carlsen is a "full piece stronger than the rest of mankind"! Korobov, who was leading in the Challengers, also tasted defeat in round 8 and was joined by Vidit Gujrathi who got the edge over Dmitry Gordievsky of Russia. An illustrated report.  

The Grand Asian Chess Challenge 2018

22/01/2018 -

The Grand Asian Chess Challenge (GACC) 2018 is being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the Malaya University. The inter-university tournament will begin from the 22nd of January. Before that there was a six-round rapid event held at the same venue. India's Gajanan Jayade is playing the tournament and sends us a brief report. He writes to us, "The GACC is a great example of how a few youngsters can organize a prestigious event and manage around 500+ people." Report from Malaysia:

Chennai 2018 Rounds 5+6: Pranav impresses, Gareyev falls

22/01/2018 -

The Chennai International 2018 is now placed at a very interesting point with three leaders after six rounds. Karthik Venkatraman, Deepan Chakkravarthy and Adam Tukhaev are all on 5.5/6 and they are followed by eleven players on five points. The big news of the day was the double loss for top seed Timur Gareyev. He first lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy and then to IM Sidhant Mohapatra who played a nice game against the King's Gambit. One player to definitely watch out for in the future is the extremely talented 11-year-old Pranav Venkatesh who scored a fine win against GM Adam Horvath. 

Master class with David Llada

21/01/2018 -

To create a work of art requires great hard work and dedication. David Llada has done exactly that with his book "The Thinkers". David is one of the best chess photographers and his 208 pages of The Thinkers resonates his quest for perfection. Each picture is meticulously captured and edited to bring to you the beauty and intensity of the game of chess. When one of India's ace chess photographers Amruta Mokal met David in Delhi, the duo sat down and discussed the book in great depth. This article not only contains David's best photographs from the book, and some pearls of wisdom, but also 32 minutes of this conversation with Amruta in video format. 

Tata Steel Chess 07: Anand suffers his first defeat to long time rival Vladimir Kramnik

21/01/2018 -

The seventh round of Tata Steel Chess featured a matchup between the two veterans of the event, Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. Anand seemed to have mixed up something and looked uncomfortable in the opening. Making the most of this, Big Vlad strategically outplayed the newly crowned world rapid champion to make it into the three-way tie for second on the leaderboard. For Adhiban Baskaran, his King's Indian with the black pieces wasn't enough to win against Maxim Matlakov and had so settle splitting the point. In the Challengers, Vidit was held to his third consecutive draw by IM Lucas van Foreest while Harika lost in an equal endgame against GM Matthias Bluebaum. An illustrated report on round 7.

Live games from the Chennai Open 2018

21/01/2018 -

The Chennai Open 2018 is being held from the 18-25 January at the Vijay Park Hotel in Chennai. 16 GMs and 19 IMs are taking part in a field of 266 players from 22 countries. On this page you can follow the games live along with some very interesting videos posted by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal. The Chennai Open is the final grandmaster event in the circuit of four events that is taking place in India starting from Bhopal - Mumbai and Delhi. Enjoy the games from the chess capital of India! 

Chennai 2018 Round 4: Yogic Timur Gareyev leads with six others

20/01/2018 -

Timur Gareyev is always a crowd puller either by the moves on the board or by his actions off it. Today he sat like a Yogi in his game against Rahul Sangma and played some fine chess to put it across his opponent. Six more players join him on 4.0/4. They are: Adam Tukhaev, Deepan Chakkravarthy, R.R.Laxman, Karthik Venkatraman, Marcos Llaneza and Arif Abdul Hafiz. In the fourth round we saw some mini-upsets as grandmasters Sivuk, Horvath and Tran Tuan Minh stumbled to a defeat. We have the full report with game analysis, pictures, and videos! 

Tata Steel Chess 06: Shakh beats Adhiban to take pole position

20/01/2018 - Halfway down the line, Tata Steel Chess 2018 found its first sole leader in the form of Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. In round six, the Azerbaijani GM got the better of India's Adhiban Baskaran to take the sole lead while his co-leaders, Anand and Giri, agreed to a short draw among themselves. Magnus Carlsen, who hasn't been doing extremely well so far, tried hard to bring home the full point against Peter Svidler but the Russian found a sneaky series of sacrifices to force repetition. In the Challengers, Anton Korobov uncorked a novelty in the Fianchetto  Gruenfeld to beat Aryan Tari while his nearest rival, Vidit Gujrathi was held to a draw by Benjamin Bok. Round 6 report.

Chennai 2018 Round 2+3: 12-year-old Divya Deshmukh beats first GM of her chess career

20/01/2018 -

It was a double round day at the Chennai Open 2018. 17 players are on 100% score with 3.0/3. The number of upsets have not been that huge as compared to the previous grandmaster events. The biggest news of the day was Divya Deshmukh beating the first GM opponent - Vietnamese Hoa Nguyen. We not only bring you the final moments of her victory in video format, but also in-depth analysis with the 12-year-old. Timur Gareyev continued to entertain the audience with his dashing style of play. He is surely looking like a hot contender for winning the title at the Chennai Open 2018. We have the detailed report from Chennai.