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Three days before his 50th birthday, Vishy is fighting it out in the German Bundesliga

10/12/2019 -

Just three days before his big day - his 50th birthday, Vishy Anand is busy in Germany playing at the Bundesliga for his team OSG Baden Baden for the 2019-20 season. These were rounds three and four and Vishy played some very interesting chess to score 1.5/2 and help his team score wins over Solingen and SV Mulheim Nord. Especially exciting was Anand's win against Thomas Beerdsen, the Dutch youngster rated 2482, nearly 300 Elo points lower than Vishy. In a Sicilian Taimanov we saw a full blooded fight where Anand with the white pieces sacrificed a pawn and accepted an inferior pawn structure to attack Black's king! The entire game has been deeply analyzed along with Vishy's short draw against Markus Ragger. 

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Vishy's December #07 - From an 18-year-old talent to a 50-year-old legend!

09/12/2019 -

Vishy Anand is a legend today. He has not only achieved the highest honours in the game of chess but has also led the entire country to becoming one of the biggest chess superpowers in the world. But how was he when he was young? Frederic Friedel, the co-founder of ChessBase, has known Vishy for the last several decades and has also been a very close friend of his. He has seen him grow from a prodigiously talented teenager into a mature and highly accomplished man. In a recent interview with IM Sagar Shah, he related many of his interesting experiences with a young Vishy when he was still climbing the upper echelons of the chess world. Therefore friends, in Vishy's December #07 we wind back the clock and take you on a journey which is as nostalgic as it is insightful of the maestro's life and character.

Arjun Erigaisi and S.L.Narayanan lead Elllobregat Open

09/12/2019 -

Arjun Erigaisi and S.L.Narayanan lead the Elllobregat Open 2019 after the completion of six rounds here in Catalonia, Spain. The duo has remained unbeaten so far scoring an impressive 5.0/6 each to pull ahead of the rest of the field by half a point. The highlight of the event's sixth round however was GM Karthik Venkatraman beating the top-seeded Maxime Lagarde, while earlier in the fifth round it was IM Raja Harshit who grabbed all the eyeballs by stunning Karthikeyan Murali with black pieces. In this report we bring you a brief overview of the most important moments from rounds five and six.

Ding Liren wins Grand Chess Tour 2019

09/12/2019 -

Ding Liren won Sinquefield Cup 2019 earlier this year and finished as runner-up in FIDE World Cup 2019 couple of months ago. At Tata Steel Chess India Rapid and Blitz, he was only the player in the entire tournament who beat Magnus Carlsen twice. After winning the tournament, Ding Liren said, "When (I am in) my best shape, I can compete with anyone else." Actor Woody Harrelson made an inaugural move 1.d4 in an Aronian-Carlsen Rapid game. MVL secured the second position, Carlsen finished third and qualified for GCT 2020 and Aronian finished 4th. However Carlsen got the highest prize money as he had a better performance in all GCT events he participated. Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Monaco GP R6: Goryachkina, Harika and Humpy lead

09/12/2019 -

Kosteniuk held Humpy to a draw after missing a half chance in the opening. Goryachkina and Harika scored fine victories against Pia Cramling and Mariya Muzychuk respectively to join Humpy in the lead with 4.0/6 before heading to the rest day of the tournament. Although Goryachkina did not have it easy in round 6 as Cramling missed an opportunity to seize decent amount of advantage against the World Championship Challenger. Anna Muzychuk used correct tactics to beat Zhao Xue and now she is just a half point behind the leaders along with Kosteniuk. World Blitz champion Kateryna Lagno made short work of Nana Dzagnidze in just 28 moves. Gunina's tough luck continues as she again misplayed and made errors against Elisabeth Paehtz | Photo: Karol Bartnik / FIDE

A thrilling experience at the Tata Steel Chess India 2019

09/12/2019 -

The Tata Steel Chess India 2019 was the biggest ever tournament organized not just in India, but Asian soil. Held at the National Library in Kolkata, you had a huge number of people visiting the venue on a daily basis. Of course, it was a delight for the chess fans living in the city. However, the fans were not just limited to Kolkata or West Bengal. Players from all across the country travelled to the city of joy to get a glimpse of their favourite players in action. One such individual is Lokesh Natoo. Lokesh is not a competitive chess player, he doesn't even have a rating. But he loves chess. He travelled from Mumbai to witness two days of the Tata Steel Chess India action. In this article he recounts his thrilling experience! Also in the article are the winners of the ChessBase India giveaway contest for Tata Steel Chess India 2019.

GCT Finals: Advantage Ding, Carlsen's streak is still alive

08/12/2019 -

Ding Liren beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in their second Classical match in the finals, taking an enormous six-point lead. Now they will play two rapid and two blitz games where a win in rapid nets a player four points, a win in blitz means two points. Maxime has a lot of catching up to do if he wants to win Grand Chess Tour 2019. Meanwhile, for the first time in a long while, Carlsen's unbeaten streak of 106 games in Classical format came in serious jeopardy as Aronian got a winning position. When the entire world was wondering if the streak will end, Aronian kept blundering and squandering his chances and the game ended up in a draw. Aronian should be applauded for bringing Carlsen's undefeated streak almost to an end despite not being 100%. Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Vishy's December #06: The Anand Files

08/12/2019 -

With Anand's 50th birthday coming up, we are seeing the release of two high quality books on the Indian chess legend. The first one is an autobiography written by Vishy Anand himself - it's called the Mind Master and will be released on 13th of December. The other book is called "The Anand Files". It's already released and it deals with Vishy's three World Championship Matches victory in 2008, 2010 and 2012. In this article we interview with the author of the book - FM Michiel Abeln. This December, ChessBase India is celebrating the month as Vishy's December in honour of the Indian chess legend Vishy Anand turning 50 years old. If you have a story, experience or an anecdote related to Anand which you would like to share with the chess world, you can send it to us at chessbaseindia@gmail.com.  

Monaco GP R5: Goryachkina misses a chance to catch up with Humpy

08/12/2019 -

Humpy had a quiet draw with Kateryna Lagno to maintain her sole lead. Pia Cramling had an uneventful draw with Nana Dzagnidze. Goryachkina missed a win against Paehtz, thus missing the opportunity to join Humpy in the lead. Harika beat Gunina after the latter blundered in the endgame. Anna Muzychuk missed an initiative in the opening against Kosteniuk and later made an exchange sacrifice which eventually turned out incorrect and she lost the game. Zhao Xue missed a win against Mariya in time pressure. Five players Pia Cramling, Nana Dzagnidze, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Harika Dronavalli and Alexandra Kosteniuk are at 3.0/5, a half point behind the leader Humpy, going into the final round before the rest day. Photo: Karol Bartnik / FIDE

Mayank Chakraborty - 'The Awesome Kid' from Assam

07/12/2019 -

10-year-old Mayank Chakraborty of Guwahati, Assam won his maiden National title by winning National under-11 open in New Delhi last month. In just over a week, he finished tied first, second place at National Schools under-10 open. Earlier this year he won Silver in Asian Youth under-10 open, few months later he won Gold and Bronze medal at Western Asia Youth and Junior. How did this boy do all that? By self learning, studying from various ChessBase videos, DVDs, youtube videos etc. For more than a year, he did not even have a single chess coach to guide him. Get to know more about this amazing kid from Assam in an interview where he also shares a few of his annotated games from National under-11 open and National Schools. Photo: IA Jitendra Choudhary

Over 50 Indians are competing at the Elllobregat Open 2019 in Spain

07/12/2019 -

The first Elllobregat Open 2019 has commenced from the 3rd of this month and will continue till the 11th. The grand, week-long event, that is going to disburse a total of 21,490 Euro (about 16,90,000 Rupees) as prizes is seeing a phenomenal participation of more than fifty Indians this year. The tournament has found eight leaders after four rounds who have scored 3.5/4 points each and following them closely is a pack of eighteen players who are just half a point behind with 3.0/4 each. Read this article to know how the Indian players are faring so far in the competition.

GCT Finals: MVL escapes with a draw, Carlsen wins

07/12/2019 -

In the first final match between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren, MVL got into deep trouble when he reached to a completely lost Queen endgame. However, Ding misplayed and allowed MVL to promote another Queen which made the game finish with four queens on the board and none getting the winning opportunity. For the third place match, Carlsen defeated Aronian without any difficulty after the latter couldn't manage to find compensation and equalize in time pressure after he sacrificed a pawn to open things up. All four of them will play their next classical match with reversed colors today at 7:30 p.m. IST (two hours before yesterday's scheduled time). Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour

Monaco GP R4: Humpy escapes with a draw

07/12/2019 -

Tournament leader Humpy maintained her sole lead after surviving quite a few missed opportunities by her opponent Nana Dzagnidze. Anna Muzychuk arguably had the most interesting game of the round against Kateryna Lagno after almost a five-hour long game. Pia Cramling finally managed to convert advantage into a victory after her opponent Elisabeth Paehtz blundered and made a few inaccuracies under time pressure. Valentina Gunina's tough luck at the tournament continues as this time she made a huge error in the opening against Zhao Xue after which she could not recover for the rest of the game. Goryachkina beat Harika, after the latter made a wrong exchange which resulted in an isolated pawn and advanced king for her opponent. Kosteniuk and Mariya Muzychuk made a grandmaster draw in just 23 moves. Photo: Karol Bartnik / FIDE

Praggnanandhaa wins the London Chess Classic FIDE Open 2019

07/12/2019 -

2019 has been a special year for R. Praggnanandhaa. He won the super strong Xtracon Open in Denmark, he became the World Youth Champion under-18, he crossed the live rating of 2600 and now has become the London Chess Classic FIDE Open 2019 champion! More good news? He is not yet finished for the year! He will be taking part in the Sunway Sitges Open 2019 beginning from the 13th of December. Pragg finished the London Chess Classic with a score of 7.5/9 and a rating performance of 2699. He was joined at the top by Anton Smirnov, who also scored 7.5/9. Third place went to Aravindh Chithambaram. Both Sahaj Grover and R. Vaishali had a respectable finish with 6.5/9. Overall a successful event for the Indian players. 

Vishy's December #05: Tyger Tyger burning bright

06/12/2019 -

Vishy Anand lost his World Championship crown in 2013 to Magnus Carlsen. After his loss it seemed as if an era had come to an end. Anand was 44 years old and it didn't seem that he would compete again for a World Championship Match. But Vishy is Vishy! Just when everyone writes him off, he rises from the ashes like a phoenix. And this he did at the Candidates tournament in 2014, finishing ahead of some of the best players in the world and securing another shot at the World title! This victory of Vishy was so inspiring for Upendra Rawat that he decided to pen down a wonderful poem. In this article we bring you that poem along with some of Upendra's answers where he explains why he is one of Vishy's biggest fans!

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