The GRENKE Chess Classic came to a close on Monday evening with Magnus Carlsen dominating the field once again. Carlsen scored 7½ points out of his nine games and remained a point and a half ahead of his nearest rival. After his final round victory, Aditya Pai, who was present at the venue, caught up with the world champion to talk about his latest achievements, his thoughts on the upcoming Fischer Random world championship and his views on Indian chess and the potential of young Indian players. "I’ve said already a few years ago. India is going to be the strongest chess country in the world and I see no reason to go back on that" is what Magnus had to say!

The year's third major closed event, the Grenke Chess Classic, is poised to a spectacular start, featuring a fierce field that blends experience, youth and promise. Magnus Carlsen will be the top seed of the event while Fabiano Caruana, his erstwhile world title challenger, will take second on the starting rank. Other big names from the field include Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Peter Svidler, etc. Viswanathan Anand, the only Indian in the fray, will begin as the third seed and would be eyeing his first big win of the year after lukewarm results at the Tata Steel and Shamkir. The field also features Vincent Keymer, the 14-year-old German IM who stunned the world by winning the title in the open last year. If all of this wasn't enough, Carlsen and Caruana will be seen crossing swords across the checkered board for the first time since their World Championship Match here in southwest Germany. Here's a peek into this exciting event.

As per Wikipedia, Anish Giri is a Russian born Dutch Grandmaster. But by his name, he sounds curiously Indian. Also, he holds a connection to India keeping in mind his work with Vidit Gujrathi in recent times and he had also been a second to Viswanathan Anand during his World Championship match against Veselin Topalov in Sofia, Bulgaria. After the Tata Steel came to a close, Anish, in a brief interview with Aditya Pai, spoke about his Indian roots, his work with Anand and Vidit, the current boom in Indian chess and his prospects of playing in India.

The Tata Steel has been one of Vishy Anand's very favourite tournaments. He has played there nineteen times thus far and has bagged five tournament titles. This year, he completed 30 years since his maiden appearance there, scoring a solid 7½/13. After his final round game, Aditya Pai caught up with the Indian ace for a brief interview in the press room at Wijk aan Zee to talk about his journey. | Photo: Alina L'ami

AlphaZero became a worldwide sensation when it defeated the world's strongest chess engine in a long match just hours after being fed the rules of the game. At the time, Garry Kasparov said that it had shaken chess to its roots. In the opinion of Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, the authors of the book 'Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI' this all-new silicon monster developed by DeepMind has helped us discover that there is lots of fresh potential in chess. ADITYA PAI spoke with the authors about their book, the impact AlphaZero has (and will have) on our royal game and whether chess will be solved one day in the light of such technological advancements.

Magnus Carlsen won his seventh Tata Steel Chess title after holding a draw against Anish Giri despite all of the latter's attempts to keep the game going. Peace was signed after 30 moves as Anish contented himself with the second place. There was a three-way tie for third between Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren and Vishy Anand, who had all scored 7½/13. As for Vidit Gujrathi, he finished sixth, just one spot behind Anand, with a score of 7.0/13. In the Challengers' Vladislav Kovalev took the title, winning with a staggering 1½ point margin, having beaten Stefan Kuipers in the final round. GM R Praggnanandhaa finished his run with a draw against IM Dinara Saduakassova. | Photo: Alina L'ami

At the conclusion of the penultimate round of the Tata Steel Masters, it became clear that the race for the title will be only between Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri. With a win over Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the twelfth round, Carlsen has taken the sole lead. Giri remained half-a-point behind the World Champion after avoiding defeat thanks to a sudden draw offer by Teimour Radjabov. Other wins of the round were scored by Vladimir Kramnik (over Vladimir Fedoseev) and Sam Shankland (over Ian Nepomniachtchi), while the game between Vishy Anand and Ding Liren ended in an exciting draw. | Photo: Alina L'ami

The eleventh round of Tata Steel Chess saw Vidit Gujrathi score another emphatic win over a much higher rated opponent. This time, Vidit's victim was the 2817 rated Shakhriyar Mamedyarov! But despite there being this huge upset in the round, the biggest story of the day was Sam Shankland's resignation against Anish Giri. The American Grandmaster had, as Giri put it, "a hallucination of some sort" as he resigned in a drawn endgame. With this win, Giri joined Carlsen in the tournament lead. Two tournament leaders emerged in the Challengers group too after Vladislav Kovalev defeated Parham Maghsoodloo and joined Maksim Chigaev in the lead. Round 11 report

The tenth round of Tata Steel Chess turned out to be a spectacle. As many as five out of the seven games in the Masters' leg were decisive. In the top matchup of the round, Magnus Carlsen managed to eke out a win in a drawn endgame against Vishy Anand to take the sole lead as Nepomniachtchi, the third co-leader, surprisingly lost to Jorden van Foreest. Vidit Gujrathi, in the meanwhile, crushed Vladimir Kramnik and became the second Indian after Anand to achieve the feat! In what was tactically the most fascinating game of the round, Richard Rapport brought down Jan Krzysztof Duda with a spectacular rook sac. In the Challengers, Maksim Chigaev also came up with a brilliant rook sacrifice to get the better of R Praggnanandhaa.

The fourth round of Tata Steel Chess (Masters) saw Ian Nepomniachtchi seize his opportunity to join Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand in the lead as the two were held to modest draws. In a Petroff Defence game, Nepomniachtchi made the most of his extra space and managed to bring down the ultra-solid Vidit Gujrathi. In another fascinating endgame, Vladimir Fedoseev outsmarted Teimur Radjabov to pocked the full point after an 84 move marathon. In the Challengers', Maksim Chigaev kept his half point lead over the field with a draw against Andrey Esipenko. R Praggnanandhaa, in the meanwhile, managed to hold ground against the top seed of the tournament, GM Anton Korobov.

Out of the five tournament leaders, only Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand retained their lead at the conclusion of the eighth round in the Masters' segment of Tata Steel Chess. Anand, as white, came up with a counter-intuitive opening novelty in the Caro-Kann Defence and went on to win a fine tactical game against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in only 29 moves! Carlsen, who was playing GM Richard Rapport with the white pieces, thoroughly outplayed his Hungarian opponent in a Sicilian Taimanov to reach 5.5/8. Maksim Chigaev continued his fine form in the Challengers and took sole lead in the tournament after his third straight win. Andrey Esipenko also climbed up to the second place on the leaderboard after defeating the Indian chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa.

The seventh round of Tata Steel Chess saw a clash between two long-time friends and rivals: Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand. As White, Kramnik played some rash moves in the opening to give Anand an extra pawn but as Anand said after the game, "the position was easier to lose for black than for white". However, the Indian ace managed to find his way through and hop into the tournament lead scoring a win. Meanwhile, Vidit Gujrathi suffered his first loss of the tournament as Teimur Radjabov annihilated his king in a Queen's Gambit Ragozin. In the Challengers' R Praggnanandhaa showed some excellent home prep to beat Stefan Kuipers in merely 23 moves! Round 7 report.