IBCA World Teams Round 3: India stuns Spain 3-1

24/07/2018 -

The third round at the World Team Championships 2018 was a very successful one for Team India. We were facing Spain which had a rating average of 300 points above our team. But the team of Kishan Gangolli, Soundarya Pradhan, Aryan Joshi and Ashvin Makwana played some sublime chess to win the match 3-1. Wins came for team India on boards one and two. Kishan beat his 2196 rated opponent in positional style, while Soundarya made sure that the tactical skirmishes ended in his favour. Aryan was better and Ashvin was worse, but both of them managed to hold on to a draw. India now face a stiff challenge in round four against the Polish team which consists of one GM and two IMs. Here's round three report with pictures, videos, games, analysis and more.

IBCA World Teams Round 2: Focussed Indian team beats Romania 3.5-0.5

23/07/2018 -

There were questions in the air whether Indian team would be able to fight back after their loss to Ukraine in the first round. The boys fought back in a big way and beat Romania with a score of 3.5-0.5. More than the scoreline, it was the quality of the games. Everyone gave it their all and the games were well played by the Indian players. In this report we not only bring you the results, pictures and analysis, but also detailed videos with all of the four Indian players explaining their games. In the third round India will face Spain and it will be a stiff challenge, but after the match with Romania, the Indian lads seemed to have warmed up pretty well. 

Sankalp, Ajay, Utsab, Soham and Divya lead after round 8 in 44th National Sub-Junior 2018

23/07/2018 -

Sankalp Gupta, Ajay Karthikeyan, Utsab Chatterjee, Soham Kamotra and Divya Deshmukh are in the lead after round 8 in 44th National Sub-Junior Chess Championship. 2018 in the open and girls category respectively. Second seed of the tournament, Sankalp Gupta defeated overnight leader Koustav Chatterjee to join a four-way lead. Ajay, Utsab and Soham defeated higher rated players to join the leaders fray. Top seed Divya Deshmukh extended her lead when she defeated Bhagyashree Patil with Black pieces. Saina Salonika and Bristy Mukherjee trail behind her by half a point. In this report we bring you games and photos from the round 8 of the tournament. Photos: Swati Biswas

CBIJ #08: Kriti and Prraneeth - two hungry youngsters of India!

22/07/2018 -

CBIJ #8 brings to you the news of the rising stars of India. We want to share with you the stories of two hungry young kids - Kriti Patel and Prraneeth Vuppala. These two youngsters gained over 300 Elo points in roughly around two months. Kriti moved from a rating of 1300 to 1600+, while Prraneeth's ascent began from 1943 and ended at 2281! From the title one could be mistaken for believing that the duo are hungry for just Elo points. Well, that's not the case. The Elo gain is just a logical consequence of their hunger for hard work and knowledge. In this article we know these two champions better. We also bring you the 'importance of reading' in our Editor's pick section. And last but not the least, there is Quality Chess Book to be won for the winner of this edition's Trivia.

IBCA World Teams Round 1: Aryan's lightning win not enough to overcome Ukraine

22/07/2018 -

The 8th IBCA World Team Championships 2018 kicked off on Saturday, 21st of July. The Indian team is one of the lower seeds at the event, but are filled with great aspirations. In the first round India faced the favourites of the tournament Ukraine. The lads gave a very tough fight including Aryan Joshi's scintillating 21-move win over his much fancied opponent. Kishan was also better in his game, but lost the thread in the early middlegame. Indians lost to Ukraine 3-1, but have already showed some promise. In this article we not only acquaint you with the ambience of the event, but also take you through the journey of travelling from Mumbai to Sofia. 

Gong Qianyun: "I had to clean toilets if I failed to memorize the classics correctly!"

21/07/2018 -

At the conclusion of the QCD-Prof Lim Kok Ann Grandmasters Invitational 2018, Singapore got its latest Woman Grandmaster in Gong Qianyun. Despite being the lowest rated player in the field, Gong was able to hold ground against Grandmasters rated as much as 300 points above her! In this interview with Junior Tay, she talks about her performance in the invitational, her personal life and her early days of learning chess when she had to clean toilets if she wasn't able to memorise the classics correctly!  

Where do you see Indian chess in 10 years from now?

21/07/2018 -

20th of July every year is celebrated as the International Chess Day. This was the day when the world chess organization FIDE was established in 1924. In 1966, UNESCO suggested to observe 20th of July as the International Chess Day and since then all the 181 members of FIDE celebrate this special occasion. India is now progressing towards becoming the strongest chess country in the world. We asked lots of top Grandmasters and eminent personalities from India and the world one question, "Where do you see Indian chess in 10 years from now?" We have accumulated all the answers and compiled them in this article below. We have also selected few of the best answers by our readers from Facebook and Twitter and published it here.

A motivated Indian Blind team sets off to Bulgaria for the World Team Championship

20/07/2018 -

The Indian blind team is off to Bulgaria today for the world team championship. Over the next few days, they will be taking on some of the best blind teams in the world in their quest for a medal at the event. In this article, we discuss their preparation, assess their chances of a podium finish at the event and tell you about their meet with Viswanathan Anand.

8-year old kid shows never give up attitude in ACL 1st Super League 2018

20/07/2018 - 8-year old Aditya Saxena of Victorious Chess Academy kept fighting despite being down by a piece till the end for a win against Kushal Radia of Dynamic Chess Academy. Aditya shows us it's not about just winning games and matches for the team, it's all about fighting till the end and not giving up. Both players have made a lot of mistakes, but that is besides the point. Aditya managed to get a winning position but in the end he couldn't figure out how to win as it was not in his knowledge. Let's take a look at this roller coaster of a game and learn from the kids on keeping the fighting spirit alive even when you are down. Photo: Sameer Ghela and Manish Parmar.

"Smart" Vishy Anand stars in Vodafone ads

19/07/2018 -

Big brands use celebrities all the time to promote their products. Usually they go for Bollywood stars and when it comes to sports, it's the cricketers who get the endorsements. However, when brands want to portray smartness, there is one man who is a cut above everyone else. Yes, you guessed it right - the five-time World Champion Vishy Anand! Recently Vodafone released three 30 second ads on their smart data plans and the protagonist in them was India number one Viswanathan Anand. Anand doesn't speak much in the ad. It's his smile and witty answers to Gaurav Kapur's questions that gets the message across! 

Nas Daily features Armenia's Chess in Schools program

19/07/2018 -

Yesterday, famous Facebook vlogger, Nuseir Yassin aka Nas released an interesting video on Armenia's chess in schools program. For any chess lover, this was a pleasant surprise as finding chess in popular social media content is quite a rarity. Keeping with the spirit of his other videos, Nas shared an interesting story worth learning from. And guess what! Levon Aronian featured in that video along with the Armenian President. In this report, we share Nas' video, present a few quick facts about Armenia's Chess in Schools program and compare it with Indian scholastic chess.

Koustav Chatterjee wins WB State Sub-Junior and Youth consecutively

17/07/2018 -

Koustav Chatterjee becomes the first player in West Bengal to win two different West Bengal State Championships consecutively within two weeks. Koustav won State Sub-Junior for the very first time and within 8 days, he won the first edition of State Youth championship. He had won State u-11 and u-13 before in 2013 and 2015 respectively. Koustav won both Sub-Junior and State Youth convincingly as he finished half point ahead of the runner up. Bristy Mukherjee won State Sub Junior Girls emphatically as she finished a full point ahead of a pack. Photo: Amruta Mokal

From world's second youngest GM in 2006 to world's second youngest GM in 2018

17/07/2018 -

Praggnanandhaa becoming world's second youngest GM on 23rd of June 2018 at the age of 12 years, 10 months and 13 days was a fantastic achievement. But 12 years ago, in 2006 India experienced something similar. A young boy from Delhi, Parimarjan Negi achieved his GM title at the age of 13 years 4 months and 22 days becoming the second youngest GM behind Sergey Karjakin. This record stood for eleven years before Nodirbek Abdusattorov from Uzbekistan broke it in the year 2017. Today Negi, being a computer science student at Stanford, has the ability to think deeply about how becoming one of world's youngest GMs helped him in his chess career. We also ask him if he has any advice that might be of use for Praggnanandhaa.

This couple works selflessly to promote chess in Mumbai

16/07/2018 -

Finding a good coach or an academy in chess has been difficult for many players and parents. When chess parents Hemangi and Rishi Gupta from Mumbai faced the same problem for their daughter Ananya Gupta, they did not decide to send her outside the city to work with high class trainers. Instead, they got the best trainers from all over India to come their home and started the iLead Chess Academy from their living room. The vision was to provide high class training to kids in Mumbai and the state of Maharashtra. Money making was never the aim. Hemangi and Rishi have in many ways helped in transforming the chess training scene in the city. An article on the work they have done by FM Sauravh Kherdekar. 

How I became the ACO World Champion (2/2)

15/07/2018 -

In Part I of this article we saw how Ashwin Subramanian who was just an unrated player, went to the ACO World Championship in Greece, played in 1600-1800 section and won the event. He was the only unrated player in the section, but he finished ahead of all the rated players. While this was a fantastic result, the question on everyone's mind was - how did Ashwin do it? Was it plain luck, or was it meticulously planned pre-tournament preparation? It was definitely the latter and in this article we tell you all about how the 40-year-old engineer from Intel worked hard on the different chess resources out there to become a stronger chess player.