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Quite a few games today were between Indians themselves. There were no friendly draws as the players chose to fight to the bitter end. Surya Shekhar Ganguly defeated Englishman David Howell to lead the Indian contingent with 4.0/5. A detailed report with some beautiful pictures, games, tactics and more!
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The youngsters of the Indian contingent had a lucky day as many of them escaped from bad positions to earn draws, or as in the case of Vignesh NR, even win, against Wei Yi! Vaishali R. finally opened her account, however, her senior state-mate GM Venkatesh's woeful run continued. A complete report with loads of pictures, games, analysis, and a video report.
The Indians in the top half of the tournament standings had an uneventful day. Sethu and Harika crumbled in the face of their higher rated opponents. Many settled for draws with those rated lower than them, except Adhiban, who even lost. Nevertheless, Sasikiran held Karjakin, and Shardul settled for a draw with Hou Yifan. IM Vignesh NR beat GM Bartel, who is rated 200 points above him. The star attraction of the day was the legendary Spanish playmaker Xavi Hernandez, who visited the tournament. A complete report with pictures, games and video interviews.
A very solid day for the Indians as a number of players settled for draws in the second round of the Qatar Masters Open, 2015. Magnus Carlsen escaped Aravindh, who botched up his position in time-trouble. Don't feel pity -- can you guess how much time he spent on his fourth move? Among the women, Harika held the world's strongest female Hou Yifan to a draw. A complete report with pictures, annotations and video interviews.
The first round of the 2015 Qatar Masters Open came to a close. While the news will certainly be dominated by Carlsen's draw, the biggest upset of the day has to be IM Shardul Gagare's spirited victory over his much higher-rated peer Chinese GM Wei Yi! Indians, who made up 21% of the players competing at Qatar, displayed some entertaining chess on most of the boards. A complete report with pictures, supplemented by games and interesting positions.
India No. 2 Pentala Harikrishna joined the SG Solingen club as their second board for the 2015-16 season of the Bundesliga. He played the December leg of the current season for his team and scored 2.5/3, before heading to Qatar to play the 2015 Qatar Masters Open. His performance at the German League has earned him 13 points that take his live rating to 2756, and rank 14 in the live rating list!
The Khordha District Chess Association, under the leadership of Subhasis Patnaik, organized the 5th Bhubaneswar All India FIDE Rating Open Championship for Girls Only between 10-15 December 2015 at the Infocity Campus in Bhubaneshwar. The event, despite being organized in the best possible manner, did not quite receive the kind of reception a tournament of such ilk richly deserves. The local star WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty won the tournament ahead of WGM Bhakti Kulkarni, WGM Mary Ann Gomes and IM Nisha Mohota, who sent us a beautifully illustrated report.
One of the main reasons why countries like China are a step ahead of us is their national league system where teams consisting of an optimum mixture of players rated above 2700, talented players in the 2500-2700 range and women players compete together. Indian GM Dronavalli Harika played seven games across two legs of the 2015 Chinese League that began in April and ended this month. A report comparing the Indian chess scene with the Chinese league system and Harika's contribution in Team Beijing's victory!
Vishy Anand had a pretty disappointing seventh edition of the London Chess Classic. He scored 3.5/9 finishing ninth amongst ten players. In this report we analyze his eighth and ninth round games against Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri respectively. But Anand fans don't you despair - there's some good news: Vishy has qualified to be a part of the Grand Chess Tour 2016!
The city of Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic hosted the 2015 Asian Juniors & Girls Under-20 Championship. Although the tournament has not been too famous among the Asian countries – most players just give it a miss – it has always been attractive to some due the customary GM norm awarded to the winner of the tournament. Although India dominated this competition in 2014, this year we could only see a silver performance.
The Thiruvarur District Chess Association conducted the Thiruvarur Chess Festival alongside the 2015 National Premier to commemorate the celebration of chess in this small Tamil Nadu town. Our dear friend Shyam Sundar T sent us some photographs of the festival which we have reproduced here for you to enjoy in this pictorial report.
The Penang Heritage City International Open was held from 7-12 December 2015 at Penang, Malaysia. A handful of Indian players made the trip to the beautiful city as it is a part of a series of tournaments in Malaysia. An illustrated report with some choice tactics for our dear readers.
GM Vishnu Prasanna scored a victory in the final round to aggregate 6.5/9 and had the best score among the Indians. IM Swayams Mishra and IM Sagar Shah lost their games with the black pieces to be stuck at 5.5/9. IM Crg Krishna needed a win in the final round game to register a GM norm, however, he lost as well. The star of the tournament for India was the untitled V. Ap Karthik, who stayed undefeated and scored a seven-game IM norm. An illustrated report.
India finished with five Gold, three Silver and three Bronze medals, and was the best performing team of the world for the fourth year in a row. The buoyed All India Chess Federation, in a positive gesture and appreciation of the players' performance, felicitated all the medal winners with cash prizes today at Delhi. In a central council meeting held earlier in the day, some notable amendments were made to the regulations. A report by the AICF.
The eighth round saw GM Vishnu Prasanna and IM Crg Krishna take a hit as they lost their games to players rated higher than them. V. Ap Karthik and IM Tania Sachdev continue to remain undefeated in the tournament. While the Indians are performing on par with their ratings, there is nothing remarkable to talk about. In the Classic, Vishy blundered and lost his second game of the tournament, this time to Grischuk.
