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Niraj Saripalli wins Goa State Championship 2018

01/08/2018 -

The Goa State Championship 2018 was held from the 8th to the 12th of July 2018. It was a strong event where there were four clear contenders for the title. Top seed Ameya Audi who has a rating of 2399, talented youngster Leon Mendonca (2241), Ritviz Parab (2235) and Niraj Saripalli (2179). It was an extremely hard fought event where in the end it was Niraj Saripalli who emerged victorious. In this article we tell you more about the event, but also have two deeply annotated games by the winner. Niraj shows us his wins over Ameya Audi and Ritviz Parab and also tells us his thought process behind the moves he had chosen. Checking these high intensity games with comments from the winner is sure to help you improve your chess understanding. 

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Asian Nations Cup 2018: A pawn endgame that Sasikiran could not solve

01/08/2018 -

It was a mouth watering clash between the Indian team and the Iranian youngsters (Iran Green) in the fourth round of the Asian Nations Cup 2018. The match was evenly balanced with three games ending in a draw. It all depended now on Sasikiran's game against Tabatabaei. The Iranian player had liquidated the position into a pawn endgame which looked favourable for him. But in pawn endgame there is nothing like slight edge or a better position. It's either winning/losing or a draw! Sasikiran had a narrow path towards equality, but he missed it and in this article we show you this beautiful defence. The women team made short work of Syria with a score of 4-0 and moved to third position on the leaderboard. Thumbnail Image: David Llada.

ACL 1st Super League 2018: All Semi-finalists revealed

01/08/2018 -

ICA, MCA, DCA and TCAA are the semi-finalists in Rating 1000-1400 category. The semi-finalists for Rating 1400-1800 category are MCA, MCC, DBCA and ICA. In 1800-2200 category which contains IMs in various teams, the semi-finalists are, PKCCE, DBCA, dpCA and OCR. Reigning National Blitz Champion IM D K Sharma represented PKCCE, IM Abhishek Kelkar played for KCA, IM Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad was in SPACE and IM Swayams Mishra made his ACL debut to cover for his student Sankalp Gupta's absence as a wild card. In this report you will find games, positions and photos of the semi-finalists.

Asian Nations Cup: Indian men going strong, women stumble against China

31/07/2018 -

The Indian team has its work cut out at the Asian Nations Cup in both Open and Women's section. After a draw in the first round against Uzbekistan by both the Indian teams, the men's team has been working well in tandem to dispatch Iran Red and Kazakhstan. While Sethu and Sasi provided the wins against Iran Red, it was Adhiban and Ganguly who got the full points against Kazakhstan. Round four is the big challenge and India will face the in form young Iran Green Team. In the women's section, India lost in round two against China 3-1. They came back with 4-0 win against Iran Red and are currently in the fourth position. A special thanks to the coach of the Indian women's team Swapnil Dhopade for sending us pictures from the venue in Iran.

Hainan Danzhou Masters: Vidit Gujrathi suffers yet another blow

30/07/2018 -

After staging a strong comeback in the previous round, Indian number three, GM Vidit Gujrathi fumbled again in round four and lost to the top seed of the tournament, Yu Yangyi. Going into the rest day, Vidit is back to the bottom-most spot alongside Wei Yi and Le Quang Liem after this loss. Meanwhile, Jan Krzysztof Duda lost surprisingly against GM Sam Shankland in an equal rook endgame. Interestingly, in both losses, the downfall of the loser had begun after they played their pawn to b5 in seemingly equal endgames.

Torre: "Chess at that time was a mystery"

30/07/2018 -

An interview with a living legend! IM SAGAR SHAH spoke with GM Eugenio Torre who reminisces about the years of his prime, talks about his struggles and reasons his failures. He also talks about the advents of Vishy Anand and Wesley So, his love for Chess960 and suggests an interesting scoring system to reduce the rampant draws in top level chess. | Photo: David Llada

Hainan Danzhou Masters: Vidit ends Shankland's 62 game unbeaten streak

29/07/2018 -

The third round of the Hainan Danzhou Masters saw GM Vidit Gujrathi register an emphatic victory over Samuel Shankland. With the white pieces, Vidit got an advantage early out of the opening and hardly gave his opponent a chance to catch up. With this win, Vidit has moved to the joint third spot while also breaking Shankland's streak of 62 undefeated games. Even overall, the round was a turbulent one. Three out of the four games of the round ended decisively while Vladimir Fedoseev miraculously saved a lost game against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. With Duda's game drawn, Bu Xiangzhi who won against Le Quang Liem in round three has taken sole lead in the tournament 

IBCA World Teams 2018: India finishes third in Group B

29/07/2018 -

The Indian blind team played well in the group stages and finished third ahead of some strong teams like Spain, Slovenia, Bulgaria and others. The team missed its chance to move to the semi-finals by not finishing in top two in their group, but they now have a chance to fight for the fifth spot. They take on Venezuela on the 29th of July. So how have Kishan Gangolli, Soundarya Kumar Pradhan, Aryan Joshi, Ashvin Makwana, and Subhendu Kumar Patra played at this event. In this report which covers all 16 games of Indian players from rounds four to seven, we look at the games in detail, trying to assess how strong our blind players really are. We request you to join in and let us know what you think about the games! 

Asian Nations Cup Rapid 2018: Silver for the girls, Men take home bronze

29/07/2018 -

Team India began it's campaign for Asian Nations Cup 2018 in Hamadan, Iran by winning Silver and Bronze medals in Women's and Open category respectively in the rapid section. Vaishali scored the maximum from the women's team and in the men's team, Adhiban, Sasikiran and Sethuraman, all three were the equally highest scorers for their team. In the open section, Iran Green won the gold, China won the silver and in women's category China won the gold and Iran Green won the bronze. In this report, you will find games, positions and photos of the Indian team from day 1 of Asian Nations Cup 2018. We also have games and results of round one of the Classical section. Photo: Swapnil Dhopade

Hainan Danzhou Masters: Vidit holds Fedoseev to a solid draw

28/07/2018 -

Going into round two after a loss in the opening round, Vidit Gujrathi played in his usual solid style against Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia to hold to a draw with the black pieces. In the meanwhile, the tournament saw a new co-leader emerge in Bu Xiangzhi who defeated his compatriot Yu Yangyi in a 70-move marathon. While it looked like Yu Yangyi had saved a difficult endgame, he blundered and allowed Bu Xiangzhi to take home the full point. The other two games of the day ended in tepid draws. Round 2 report. 

Breaking the break - 4th IM from Gujarat and his story of not giving up on his dream

28/07/2018 -

He started playing chess as early as 5 years old and became the youngest rated player of India in 2002. Soon he became a rising star in the world of chess. Fenil Shah is a known name in the chess circuit of India who recently was crowned with the International Master Title and became only the 4th person from his state Gujarat to achieve it. He is among the very few players to win all the age categories and senior title in the state championships. He has won various national age groups, Asian, Commonwealth and also the British championship U-9 and U-11 in the very same year (2003). But in the year 2010 all of a sudden Fenil disappeared! Yes, he put all his chess progress on hold to pursue his studies and joined an Engineering college only to return back in 2017. Within 10 months he completed all his norms and rating criteria to achieve the IM title. Read this article to know more about Fenil Shah and how he managed to break the break!

Hainan Danzhou Masters: Vidit suffers his first loss of the year

27/07/2018 -

A brilliant win and an amazing miss were the highlights of the opening round of the 9th Danzhou Super Grandmaster Tournament. Continuing his great form from the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, Polish GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda registered an emphatic win over Indian number three Vidit Gujrathi to take an early lead in the tournament. Bu Xiangzhi also had good winning chances against Samuel Shankland but messed up quite remarkably and had to settle for a draw in the end. An illustrated report with games.

ACL 1st Super League 2018 Unrated category Semi-finalists revealed

27/07/2018 -

Dynamic Chess Academy, d'pawn Chess Academy, City Chess Club and Kunte's Chess Academy are the four academies who have qualified to the semi-finals in ACL 1st Super League 2018 in Unrated category. Each team will play a best of two matches, then they will qualify to the finals. The finals will also consist a best of two matches. Teams from Gujarat and Maharashtra have qualified for the semis. We also come to the end of group stage in the other two categories. In this report, you will find games, team standings, positions from week 3 of Academy Chess League 1st Super League 2018.

"Collecting those trophies made no real difference" - Harika

27/07/2018 -

Harika Dronavalli is one of the strongest woman players in the world of chess. After Humpy Koneru, she is only the second Indian female player who has achieved the GM title. A lot can be learnt from Harika's life and experiences. Sagar Shah met Harika at the pre-olympiad camp in Delhi and asked her questions ranging from her beginnings in chess to her ambitions and also covering the personal side of her life, her parents, coach and fiance Karteek Chandra. But two of the most important things that we would like our readers to get acquainted with are Harika's views on education and on why India has only two female players who are full-fledged GMs. These two sections have been transcribed in the article while the rest you can enjoy in the video interview.

Sri Lanka to host the 9th Kandy Open

26/07/2018 -

The Kandy International Chess Festival is slated to be held from 6th to 13th August 2018 in the historical Sri Lankan city of Kandy. In its 9th edition this year, the festival will feature a Grandmaster Open and a Blitz tournament. FM Rajeendra Kalugampitiya sends us a report with all the details about the event.

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