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Two engineers raise Rs.4 crores in a month with unique chess technology!

19/11/2019 -

Two Indian engineers studying at the Somaiya college in Mumbai decided to create a chess board which could make moves on its own. This was back in 2016. Three years have passed and their company "Square Off" has had an amazing journey. They sold many chess boards of the Kingdom and Grand Kingdom set. The company got a funding of 1.1 million US dollars towards the end of 2018. Now they have come up with two new products - Square Off Neo and Square Off Swap. In this article we tell you about the journey of Square Off and its founders Bhavya Gohil and Aatur Mehta and also tell you about the Kickstarters project that was launched a month ago for Square off Neo and Swap. In 30 days, they have managed to raise a whopping Rs. 4 crore!

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Daakshin and Anupam take sole lead at National under-11

19/11/2019 -

Daakshin Arun of Tamil Nadu and Anupam M Sreekumar of Kerala emerged as the sole leader in the Open and Girls section respectively at the conclusion of round 6 of National under-11. Daakshin defeated the other leader of the round Rohith S, while Anupam defeated former National under-9 girls champion Sneha Halder. Both Daakshin and Anupam scored their victory comfortably and they are well on their way to the championship. Total 434 players including 265 in Open and 169 in Girls are taking part from over 25 different states across the country in the nation's capital Delhi. The tournament is organized by Delhi Chess Association from 15th - 23rd November 2019 at Indira Gandhi Sports Complex. Photo: IA Jitendra Choudhary

534 kids take part in the Karnataka State Schools 2019

19/11/2019 -

When it came to GMs Karnataka had none until 2017. Now they have three. Recently they got their first WIM as well. Things are changing in Karnataka chess, but the biggest strength of the state lies in its youngsters. The number of students in schools who have taken up chess is huge! That's the reason why when the state schools championships was held in Bengaluru on the 16th of November 2019, a one-day event, you saw participation of as many as 534 youngsters! The National Schools held every year, boasts of around 1000 participants. Karnataka already has half the number in its own state! Read this article by Hinduja Reddy to know who were the winners at the event and also know more about the organizers and sponsors. This article also tells you why Karnataka chess is booming in a big way! 

Can you impress Vidit with your out of the box thinking?

18/11/2019 -

On 19th of November, India no. 3 Vidit Gujrathi will be spending a day at the ChessBase India office in Mumbai. He is travelling from Montenegro where his team won the silver medal at the European Club Cup 2019 and will be flying to Kolkata on 20th of November for the Grand Chess Tour. In between he has 24 hours in Mumbai. He could have spent it taking some rest for the important event. But Vidit wants to do something interesting in Mumbai? But what exactly? Well, that's the Vidit Gujrathi challenge! Vidit has called upon the readers of ChessBase India to put on their thinking hats and to suggest an interesting idea on which he can record a video. Of course the idea must contain a chess element, but it should definitely be something out of the box!

World Rapid and Blitz 2019 to be held in Moscow from 25-30 December

18/11/2019 -

The long awaited dates and venue of the World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2019 have been released. It will be held in Moscow from the 25th to 30th of December. The rapid portion will be held from the 26th to 28th of December and the Blitz will be on the 29th and 30th of December. The total prize fund of the event would be 1 million dollars! The detailed regulations will be published in a few days. For now, we have the press release by FIDE. 

Savitribai Phule Pune University is the West Zone University Champion

18/11/2019 -

Top seed of the tournament Savitribai Phule Pune University scored 13.0/14, remained undefeated to win AIU Inter University West Zone Men's Tournament 2019. They finished a full point ahead of the runner-up Gujarat University who finished at 12.0/14. Deviahilya University, Indore edged ahead of University of Mumbai due to a better tie-break score and finished at the third position and the latter was placed fourth. Both teams finished at 11.0/14 each. All top four teams have advanced to the All India Inter University championship. Total 52 teams from five different states comprising of 287 players participated in this tournament from 10th to 12th November 2019 at Poornima University, Jaipur. Photo: Vidhi Jagirdar

Italy invites you to play in World Natural Heritage town Forni Di Sopra

18/11/2019 -

One of the strongest international open tournament in Italy will take place in UNESCO World Natural Heritage from 13th - 20th June 2020. This will be the eleventh edition of the tournament. The tournament witnessed the participation of the former World Rapid Champion legendary Vassily Ivanchuk early this year. Among the Indians, Arun Prasad, Tania Sachdev and Sundararajan Kidambi have participated in the previous editions of the tournament. Total prize fund €8000 is up for grabs in two different category. Daily single round gives you ample amount of time to prepare for the next round as well as sink in to the beautiful vista of this picturesque town Forni Di Sopra. Photo: Tournament Circular

The most popular event in Europe for Indian players - Sunway Sitges Chess Festival

18/11/2019 -

Which is the most popular European event for Indian players? Is it the Gibraltar Masters? Is it the Aeroflot Open? Is it the Grenke Chess Classic? While all of these tournaments are popular and are frequently visited by many Indians, there is one event which takes the cake. Situated in one of the most picturesque locations in Europe, on the Mediterranean sea coast, the Sunway Sitges Chess Festival is an event you cannot afford to miss. Into its sixth year, the tournament will take place from 13-22nd December 2019 and will see as many as 75 Indians taking part in the A-group out of the 240 registered players! And it's not just about quantity! We also have high quality players including Sasikiran, Sethuraman, Karthikeyan, Nihal Sarin, Praggnanadhaa and many others. Why is this tournament so popular among Indians? We try to find out!

Mikhail Tal and the Art of 'Ghost Creation'

18/11/2019 -

13-year-old IM Aditya Mittal of Mumbai, Maharashtra discusses 'The Magician of Riga' Mikhail Tal's brilliant game against Aleksandrs Koblencs. It was played in Riga 1957. Aditya carefully annotates all brilliant ideas and intricacies of Tal's moves. He also explains how he sometimes went for aesthetically pleasing moves and ideas instead of the most immediate and direct wins. It's a pleasure to read about one of the greatest attackers that chess has ever seen through the prism one of the biggest talents of Indian chess! The young IM exclaims the fact that Tal almost always had the perfect intuition and imagination, which allowed him to play fearlessly. Check out the comprehensive annotated game of Tal by Aditya Mittal | Photo: Pinterest

AICF Gujarat WGM: Aakanksha and Mrudul leads

17/11/2019 -

Aakanksha Hagawane and Mrudul Dehankar lead the ongoing AICF International Women Grandmaster Round Robin tournament after the completion of its penultimate round today. While Mrudul has suffered defeats in the first and eighth rounds of the event, Aakanksha has actually managed to remain unbeaten with four victories and six draws. Thus, even though both players have bagged 7.0/10 points each so far, it is the latter who stands ahead in terms of tie-break scores. Phuong Hanh Luong of Vietnam follows the leaders closely just half a point behind with 6.5/10 and going into the final round will also be looking to grab one of the top places. On the other hand, the Ukrainian WIM Olga Babiy, who started off the tournament with three consecutive powerful victories, has slipped down the rank-list and now shares the fourth place jointly with Nguyen Thi Mai Hung.  

Rutuja Bakshi creates history by winning Maharashtra State Open 2019

16/11/2019 -

Rutuja Bakshi created history on 12th November 2019 by becoming the first woman in her state to win Maharashtra State Open Selection. She won this exactly a week after winning Aurangabad District Open. Earlier this year she had won State Women's, Gold in Commonwealth under-20, Silver and Bronze at Western Asia Youth and Junior. She is also pursuing CA and balancing her chess quite well. We reported earlier this year that Sonakshi Rathore won Rajasthan State Senior for a record third time. Rutuja joins the elite list of women who have won a State Senior Open. In this article we get to know about Rutuja's triumph, her best game of the year and also hear from her coach Sajandas Joshi. Photo: Joseph D'souza / PDCA chess

Can 57-year-old D.V. Prasad become India's 66th GM?

16/11/2019 -

With the Indian players who achieve the GM title getting younger by the day, it is a good question to ask - how old will India's next GM be? Will he be 12 years old like Gukesh or Pragg, 13 years old like Negi or Raunak, or 14 years old like Nihal Sarin? It could well be that India may get its next GM in a week's time and his age would 57! Yes, you read that right! IM D.V. Prasad is playing at the World Senior (+50 years) Championships 2019 in Romania and is currently in the joint second position with 3.5/4. If Prasad wins this championship he directly gets the GM title and would become India's 66th GM. Of course, the road to GM title won't be easy as Prasad is competing with 20 other GMs and is the 40th seed. But he has made a powerful start by beating a former World senior champion in 26 moves. 

IIFL Wealth Chess 5 - It cannot get bigger than this!

16/11/2019 -

This new year, if you are a chess player, you have to celebrate it in Mumbai! The IIFL Wealth Chess is back. This time it's the fifth edition and it is bigger and better than ever before. The total prize fund of all the events combined is Rs.50 lakh! For the first time in many years we will witness a GM Open in India with a rating cut off of 2250 and above! In the under-13 Juniors section, the winner will take back home a whopping prize fund of Rs.2,50,000. There is also a Masters Open (2250 and below) and a Challengers Open (2150 and below). Finally we have a blitz event open for all with a prize fund of Rs.2 lakh. In this article you will get all the information about this mega event!

Talent Test with GM Raunak Sadhwani

15/11/2019 -

ChessBase India's talent tests are enjoyed by one and all. What we usually do is subject a talented youngster of Indian chess to a selection of chess positions ranging from easy to tough and try to see how they crack these problems. This time our guest was India's latest GM, 13-year-old Raunak Sadhwani. Raunak was given 13 positions to solve. He was super quick at most of them, while some did give him trouble. Yet, finishing the entire set in 50 minutes is quite commendable. In this article we bring you all the 13 positions, and ask you to solve them, just like Raunak did with a timer, and then go through the video to see how you fared in the test as compared to one of the biggest talents of Indian chess! Also as an added bonus in this article we have Raunak's mother Heena speak about how she uses ChessBase softwares to help her son get better at chess.

Coach Priyadharshan Kannappan speaks about India's campaign at the World Youth Under-16 Olympiad

15/11/2019 -

Team India started off as the nineteenth seed at the World Youth under-16 Chess Olympiad but made a commendable seventh-place finish winning against Turkey-White and Serbia in the last two rounds of the event. From starting with emphatic victories in the initial rounds to suffering a heartbreaking 4-0 loss against Belarus, the Indian team went through a lot of ups and downs throughout the tournament. Grandmaster Priyadharshan Kannappan, who was the accompanying coach cum captain, speaks at length about it all. He shares his overall experience of the event, his impression of the players, his thoughts about the team selection this year, and much more. Read this detailed article and get to know what it feels like to compete in one of world's most prestigious team championships. 

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