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From a carpenter to India's first Olympiad medal winner - Remembering the legacy of Rafiq Khan (1946-2019)

13/08/2019 -

He was the son of a carpenter and had no formal education. He himself became a carpenter to ensure that his daily needs are satisfied. Something about the game of chess attracted him and began playing it actively. Thank God, that he chose chess, because this impoverished, illiterate carpenter from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, went on to become one of the finest chess players that India has ever seen. This is the story of Mohamed Rafiq Khan, former national champion of India and the first Olympiad chess medalist for our country. Rafiq Khan passed away at the age of 73 years on 19th of July 2019. With this article we would like to go back in the memory lane and explore the legacy left behind by this great personality. We not only bring you Rafiq Khan's life story and best game analysis but also messages and anecdotes from his friends, colleagues and contemporaries. A heartfelt eulogy. 

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Athens Of The East 1st International Grandmaster Open Chess Tournament begins

13/08/2019 -

The Athens Of The East 1st International Grandmaster Open Chess Tournament 2019 has begun from the the 10th of August and will continue till 18th in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The tournament has three categories (A, B, and C) for players rated 1700 and above, below 1700, and below 1600 respectively. Four times Commonwealth Champion Abhijeet Gupta is the top seed of the category A event, followed by Boris Savchenko and Pavel Smirnov. Out of the total 180 participants in Category A, 35 are titled players which include 9 Grandmasters and 14 International Masters. This is a ten rounds swiss event following a time control of 90 minutes with 30 seconds increment from move one. In this pictorial report we bring you the glimpses of the first two days of action.

ChessBase 15: Online help and manuals

12/08/2019 -

ChessBase 15 is a powerful program with a lot of useful functions. The online support helps you to get the most out of ChessBase 15 and is easy to access. And if you really want to explore the depths of the program the ChessBase 15 online manual will help you. It is free and available in four languages! | Drawing: ChessBase

12-year-old Harshad's maiden International title at Barbera del Valles 'B'

12/08/2019 -

12-year-old Harshad S from Tamil Nadu tasted success on his maiden voyage on the international soil when he won Barebera del Valles 'B' by scoring an undefeated 8.0/9 and finishing a half point ahead of the runner-up Greeshma Anand Dhumal, also from India, who increased a massive 249 Elo rating points in the entire tournament. With a performance rating of 2169, Harshad managed to increase his Elo rating by 90 points. Harshad made a draw in round 2, after that he won four consecutive games to take a sole lead which he maintained till the final round. Photo: Sathiesh

The contribution of the Government towards Indian chess

12/08/2019 -

Sports like cricket, which is now well established, has no shortage of funds. Primarily because the corporates find it lucrative to invest in it. But for chess, which is a growing sport in India, the big corporate houses are still making up their mind whether it is a wise decision to invest in the sport or not. Well, we at ChessBase India and all the top authorities in the world including Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand and others believe that India will dominate the chess world in the years to come. And this sentiment is echoed by the Government of India as well. So, while the corportates still make up their mind, the Government of India has increased its grant from 4 crore to 5.5 crore towards Indian chess and these funds are being utilized for the development of our youngsters and top players. At the recently concluded Abu Dhabi Masters, which was an exposure trip funded by the Government of India for 37 of our players - four were able to make their norms. In this article you get to know how Government of India and AICF are working in close sync to speed up the growth of Indian chess.

Attacking Monday Mornings with Sohan Phadke Part IV - Opening the secret door

11/08/2019 -

Opening up hidden files, ranks, and diagonals is utmost essential in any kind of attacking play. The legendary Grandmaster Nigel Short once famously said, "Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game”. If you are one of those players who like to go directly for the kill, then this part of the Attacking Monday Mornings is just for you. In this lecture Fide Master Sohan Phadke presents a new attacking technique which he likes to call "Opening the secret door". It is all about how you can make inroads into the opponent's position by opening up lines that are not apparent in the beginning. There are five positions for you to solve, at the end of which there is the solution video where Sohan meticulously explains the concept and each of the positions in detail.

World Cup 2019 pairings revealed, Vishy Anand gives the event a miss

11/08/2019 -

The pairings for the World Cup 2019 have been revealed. The 128 player knock out event provides nearly a month of action packed chess which will result in two finalists reaching the Candidates tournament in 2020. Surprisingly Vishy Anand has refrained from taking part in the event. We ask Vishy about this decision. As for other ten Indians, three of them - Harikrishna, Vidit and Adhiban will be facing lower rated opponents in round one, while Ganguly, Sethuraman, S.L. Narayanan, Abhijeet Gupta, Karthikeyan Murali, Nihal Sarin and Aravindh Chithambaram will all face opponents rated higher than them. Interesting pairings for Indians include Aravindh taking on English legend Michael Adams, Ganguly up against Russian upcoming talent Fedoseev and Nihal Sarin making his debut against Peruvian no.1 Cori Jorge. In this article we let you know about not just the first round pairings but also the future opponents of these ten Indians, if they progress to the second round and beyond. 

Abu Dhabi 2019 Final Round: Triumph of the Georgian genius

11/08/2019 -

The 26th Abu Dhabi Masters 2019 came to conclusion on the 10th of August. The Georgian Grandmaster Baadur Jobava dominated the field scoring an unbeaten 8.0/9 points with a phenomenal performance rating of 2908. Among Indians, the best finisher was Aryan Chopra who secured 11th place with a score of 6.0/9. Karthikeyan Murali, Deep Sengupta, Aravindh Chithambaram, and Vaibhav Suri also scored 6.0/9 and came within the top 20. Apart from this, seven players, namely FM Rathanvel V S, CM Raahil Mullick, WIM Nandhidhaa P V, CM Aronyak Ghosh, FM Nitish Belurkar, Senthil Maran K, and WIM Mahalakshmi M successfully made their norms from the event. In this final report we bring you the games and photos from the last round and also an overview of performances of all the Indian participants.

Pardubice Open 2019: Six norms for Indians!

10/08/2019 -

GM Jiri Stocek of Czech Republic scored an unbeaten 7.5/9 to win Pardubice Open 2019. He finished a half point ahead of a group of nine players who scored 7.0/9. Top seed Czech no.3 Viktor Laznicka finished second due to a better tie-break score, followed by Sergei Movsesian of Armenia. Among the Indians, Deepan Chakravarthy was the best finisher with 6.5/9 at 11th position and Shardul Gagare also with the same points grabbed 13th position. The tournament was a big success for the Indians as we scored six norms - WGM norms for Rakshitta Ravi, Shalmali Gagare and Sahajashri CH, IM norms for Dushyant Sharma, Nikhil Dixit and Moksh Doshi. In this report we have annotated games by norm makers and also some very interesting videos shot by Rupali Mullick at the venue!

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 8: Jobava wins again, Karthikeyan slips in the penultimate round

10/08/2019 -

In the penultimate round of the 26th Abu Dhabi Chess Masters 2019 Karthikeyan Murali ended up losing to GM Yakubboev Nodirbek. It was a highly complex game in King's Indian defense where the Indian Grandmaster made a series of inexplicable errors handing over his winning advantage to the Uzbek player. Karthikeyan has thus slipped to the 11th place on the rank-list with 5.5/8. On the other hand, the in-form leader Baadur Jobava resumed his stellar run as he registered yet another victory against the polish Grandmaster Mateusz Bartel. In this report we bring you analysis, photos, and more.

When the organizers were under time pressure

10/08/2019 -

Chess players are often seen under time pressure. With the clock ticking down they have to make decisions which would make or break their event. This is quite hard as you can imagine. But at the National under-25 championships held in Jammu things were a bit different. Apart from the players, the organizers were also under tremendous time pressure. And this time at stake was not a game, but the lives of chess players. The Government of India had made an announcement that section 370 and article 35A would be abrogated from the constitution. This made the situation in Jammu and Kashmir quite tense. As the tournament was in progress until 7th of August, the organizers were now in a tough situation. What was to be done? Should the tournament be scrapped, should they continue with the event? Well, with the benefit of hindsight we can now say that the decisions made by the organizers were extremely brave and they managed to overcome this unique situation with some excellent moves. Read on. 

Harikrishnan and Anuj finish in top 10 at Sitges Open 2019

09/08/2019 -

GM Sergey Volkov of Russia won 45th Open Internacional d'Escacs Vila de Sitges 2019. There was a three-way tie for the first place with a score of 7.0/9. According to the tie-break score, GM Namig Guliyev of Azerbaijan was placed 2nd and IM Raven Sturt of USA finished at 3rd place. India's young talents IM Ra A Harikrishnan and FM Anuj Shrivatri scored 6.5/9 each. They both tied for the 4th place, according to tie-break score they secured 6th and 9th position respectively. Harikrishnan (2401) performed at 2491 and increased his Elo rating by 12 points. Anuj (2372) performed at 2393 and gained 9 Elo rating points. Anuj is 19 Elo rating points away from fulfilling the rating criteria for IM title. Among other Indians, Sreeshwan Maralakshikari drew the final round, finishing with 5.5/9 at 21st position. Photo: Niklesh Jain

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 7: Deep Sengupta fights back, Karthikeyan Murali falters in French

09/08/2019 -

After suffering an unfortunate loss against Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei in round five, Deep Sengupta has taken charge once again as he registered his second consecutive victory in the seventh round against the strong Turkish Grandmaster Mustafa Yilmaz. On the other hand, Karthikeyan Murali missed an opportunity to punish his opponent Bartosz Socko in a French defense and had to settle for a draw. Playing in the top board, leader Jobava Baadur also drew his game against China's Ni Hua. Thus, maintaining his full point lead over the field with 6.5/7. With only two rounds of the event remaining, there are six players tied to 5.5/7 behind Jobava. Will any one of them be able to catch up with the leader? In this report we bring you photos, analyses, and more from the seventh round of 26th Abu Dhabi Masters 2019!  

Action packed chess in Akola, Maharashtra

08/08/2019 -

Akola is a city in Vidarbha region in the state of Maharashtra in central India. It is the 3rd largest city in Vidarbha, situated about 290 miles east of the state capital, Mumbai, and 140 miles west of the second capital, Nagpur. This time it is going to organize three rating tournaments. These three tournaments will be organized by PR Chess Academy, Akola and Akola district Chess Association. This is a great boost for the sport of chess in Akola, as from 8th September 2019 to 2nd February 2020 these tournaments will be organized. One of the key members of the organizing team Pravin Hend has sent us the following article, along with an invitation to all the players across India to visit Akola and play in the events.

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 6: Indians cause triple upsets in the sixth round of Abu Dhabi Festival

08/08/2019 -

The Indian contingent came out with flying colours in the sixth round of 26th Abu Dhabi Festival 2019 as the fifth, sixth, and seventh seeds of the event were all outclassed by Indians! Karthikeyan Murali beat the strong Ukrainian Grandmaster and the seventh seed of the event Andrei Volokitin in a solid positional style. Aryan Chopra crushed the sixth seeded Vladimir Onischuk's Modern defense in a mere thirty-eight moves. And IM Krishna C.R.G shocked the fifth seed Vladimir Akopian by overpowering his Benoni. Elsewhere, Jobava Baadur continued his brilliant streak as he registered his sixth consecutive victory against Parham Maghsoodloo taking a full point lead with 6.0/6 over the entire field. Four players - Nodirbek Yakubboev, Socko Bartosz, Karthikeyan Murali, and Ni Hua - follow him with 5.0/6 points. 

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