World Individual Championships for the Blind begin in Cagliari, Italy

14th IBCA World Individual Chess Championship 2019 (for blind and visually impaired ) began on the 6th of April, 2019 at Cagliari, Italy. IBCA President Dr.Charudatta Jadhav officially declared the event open during inauguration ceremony.  There are 86 players from 26 countries in the fray and will fight to be crowned as the “IBCA World Champion for the Blind”

We have four Indian players who have qualified for the tournament. They are the top four finishers of the National A 2019:

Round 1

Kishan Gangoli lost to Grandmaster Tazbir Marcin of Poland in 27 moves in Queens gambit accepted variation. Tazbir is the top seed of the event and the only grandmaster in visually challenged chess. Kishan was paired with Tazbir in the first round itself and although he played well, he went down because of time pressure. Aryan Joshi also had a tough opponent in IM Piotr Dukaczewski of Poland. The Mumbai lad opened the game with 1.e4 and Dukaczewski chose the Pirc Defence. Aryan lost in 41 moves. Subhendu Kumar Patra managed to fare better than Kishan and Aryan. He played the Ruy Lopez and drew his game against Aguilar Sevilla (2124) of Spain. Being rated 377 lower than his opponent, it was commendable that Subhendu managed to hold the draw. Experienced trainer and player Krishna Udupa tried his level best but he could not succeed scoring a point against Spanish player Manrique Fernandez (2120).

Overview of Indian players after round 1

Results of round 1

Round 2 pairing

The starting rank:

The tournament is quite strong with 1 GM and 6 IMs participating.