National Challengers round 12: Deepan and Swapnil to battle for the title!

31/08/2017 -

Going into the penultimate round, Deepan Chakkravarthy annihilated Himanshu Sharma's king in a Sicilian Paulsen. With this win, he has not only moved to the sole second spot but has also earned the right to fight for the title prize against tournament leader Swapnil Dhopade in the final round. On board 3, GM RR Laxman gave his opponent no chance, consuming only 52 mins for the entire game. In the final round, twelve players will be fighting for the nine qualification spots into the National Premier Championship and two for the title prize. An exciting finale is on the cards! 

Badalona - The Final Destination in Catalan circuit!

31/08/2017 -

The Indian contingent completed its 53-day-long Spain Trip with the Badalona Open. At this event too, Indians made their presence felt. While IM P Iniyan made his mark by finishing joint third at the event, GM Himanshu Sharma finished among the top 10 after some fumbles in the middle of the tournament. Not only that, a lot of young Indian talents pulled out a remarkable show. Here's a report with games and impressions from the lively city of Barcelona! 

Vidit the immovable object has become an unstoppable force

30/08/2017 -

Reaching Elo 2700 is a big milestone for a chess player. Many GMs might even kill to reach the feat. India's Vidit Gujrathi had been lurking around this much-revered rating mark for quite a while. He came close, drifted away, but kept chasing. And in the end, on August 20, 2017, he finally barged into the 2700 club with a bang. At the Spanish Higher League, playing for team Solvay, he scored an unbeaten 4.5/7 beating Alexander Areshchenko in the final round to catapult his rating to 2701.7. The fact that only three Indians had been able to achieve this mark speaks volumes about this achievement.

Chess Camp by Rakesh Kulkarni at the Hangouts Place, Pune

29/08/2017 -

Pratik Mulay, a sub-2000 rated player from Pune, came up with an excellent idea to hang out with his chess friends while learning the game at the same time. He set up a place for all chess players to hang out, play weekend tournaments and learn the game at a snooker parlor in his locality. As the place's popularity grew, Pratik collaborated with IM elect Rakesh Kulkarni and organized a chess camp to help everyone who is keen to learn the game. Here's a peek into what happened there.

World Cadets 2017: Travelling 9000 miles in quest for gold!

28/08/2017 - Pocos de Caldas is nearly 9000 miles away from India. Yet, 20 Indians are fighting out there at the World Cadets (under-8,10,12) 2017. It's this passion for the game and the will to excel and bring back medals for the country, that is pushing India to become a superpower in the world of chess. These youngsters are the future of Indian chess and three of them are leading at the halfway mark: Dev Shah in under 10, Shivika Rohila in under-10 girls and Divya Deshmukh in under-12 girls. Praful Zaveri is with the delegation in Brazil and sends us a beautiful report from Brazil.

A candid conversation with GM Deepan Chakkravarthy

28/08/2017 - The National Challengers 2017 was a thrilling affair. GM Swapnil Dhopade was leading the event almost all the way through. But just then, in came GM Deepan Chakkravarthy who beat all odds and clinched the title by winning five straight games! To talk about this sensational performance, ChessBase India's Aditya Pai caught up with Deepan. In this interview, Deepan not only speaks about the nail-biting finish at the National Challengers but also analyses his final round game and gives insights into his life and chess in general.

 

Asian Cities kicks of in KIIT, Bhubaneshwar

27/08/2017 -

Asian Cities 2017 is being held in the Kalinga Institute Campus, Bhubaneshwar from the 26th of August to 1st of September 2017. Rasht from Iran is the top seed with the local KIIT team being the second seeds. Twelve teams are taking part in this event. Five teams are from India: KIIT, Bhubaneshwar,  Kolkata, Puri, Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar, while we have six International teams from Iran, UAE, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Oman, Palestine and Chinese Taipei. We have round one report.

The Champion from Chudamani: IM Sidhant Mohapatra

27/08/2017 -

170 km away from the capital city Bhubaneshwar, Odisha is a small village called Chudamani. This is where a talented lad, and India's latest International Master is from. There was absolutely no chess culture at that place, but Sidhant Mohapatra braved all the odds and made a name for himself in the chess world. ChessBase India's youngest author Avathanshu Bhat caught up with him and did an interview. We present it now to you and this will help you to get to know the champion from Chudamani better. 

Come, play blitz against the best in Indian chess!

27/08/2017 -

ChessBase India prize money blitz tournaments are something that players all over India look forward to with great excitement. These events not only provide you a platform to play against the best players of the country but also to earn prize money by playing from your couch! The third ChessBase India online blitz on 10th September is dedicated to 12 years of Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy (DBCA). And this time we have made it bigger and better. Prize fund of Rs.50,000 and first place Rs.12,500. Already eight grandmasters have confirmed their participation.

11th ChessBase India show with Peter Heine Nielsen

25/08/2017 -

On 29th of September 2007 Vishy Anand drew his game against Peter Leko in Mexico City and became the World Champion. This was Vishy Anand's first undisputed World title. It was a moment of great pride and glory for Indian chess. And now we are nearing the tenth anniversary of this brilliant achievement. The eleventh ChessBase India show will deal with Anand's performance at this Mexico World Championship and the guest is none other than his second at that very tournament Peter Heine Nielsen. Expect some very exciting stories and secrets to be revealed!

Who will be India's 50th grandmaster?

24/08/2017 -

India got its first grandmaster in the form of Vishy Anand in 1988. Slowly the number increased with great talents of Indian chess like Barua, Thipsay, Kunte and others flowing in. Recently there has been a surge in chess popularity in the country and this is being shown in the sharp growth of grandmasters. We now have 49 GMs. The last one was Abhimanyu Puranik, making his final norm at the Abu Dhabi Masters. The million dollar question now is: Who will be India's 50th GM? We give you the candidates for the golden jubilee grandmaster! 

Deepan Chakkravarthy is the National Challengers 2017 Champion

24/08/2017 -

In what could be called nothing short of Bollywood action, Deepan Chakkravarthy played a Karpovian (apologies to Smyslov fans) endgame and beat the leader Swapnil Dhopade to take the 55th National Challengers title. Swapnil, who led the tournament right from the start, had to be content with the 2nd spot. Himanshu Sharma took the third place. In this report we have detailed analysis of the game Swapnil vs Deepan and we also tell you about who qualified for the National Premier 2017.

Aronyak Ghosh wins Bengal FIDE rated Rapid tournament

23/08/2017 -

It was a huge rapid event in Kolkata that was organized by Pioneer Chess School and West Bengal Chess Association. The tournament was held on the 8th and 9th of August with a time control of 25 minutes + 5 seconds increment. Youngster CM Aronyak Ghosh won the title and took back home the first prize of Rs.10,000! IM Somak Palit and Koustav Chatterjee also scored the same points but had to settle for second and third spot respectively on tiebreak. We have a report on the tournament as well as some nicely captured videos of the action during the event.

National Challengers round 11: The battle for nine qualification spots intensifies!

23/08/2017 -

The game between two Caro Kann experts Lalith Babu and Swapnil Dhopade was drawn on the top board. Himanshu Sharma also couldn't break through the defences of Aravindh Chithambaram. This meant that Swapnil still leads the tournament with 9.5/11, but four players are on his heels with 8.5 points. Apart from Himanshu and Aravindh, they include Deepan Chakravarthy and Debashis Das. There are only two rounds left for the tournament to end and nine spots at stake for National Premier 2017. It's heating up!

India gets its 49th grandmaster - Abhimanyu Puranik!

23/08/2017 -

Just a day after Vidit Gujrathi became the fourth Indian to cross 2700 in the FIDE Elo list, we have more good news from the state of Maharashtra. India got its 49th grandmaster in the form of Abhimanyu Puranik from Pune. The 17-year-old made his final GM norm with a round to spare at the Abu Dhabi Masters 2017 and also crossed 2500 Elo. It's raining grandmasters in India, and we are just one away from reaching the 50 GMs mark!