Vidit Gujrathi will star in the Champions Chess Tour Skilling Open

22/11/2020 -

Vidit Gujrathi led Team India to a historic Gold medal victory in FIDE Online Olympiad 2020 couple of months ago. He continued his impressive form in the Speed Chess invitational as he defeated Daniil Dubov and Dmitry Andreikin before losing to Sergey Karjakin. Vidit will be looking forward to making an impressive start at the Champions Chess Tour as he battles against the best of the best. The first event of the 2020-21 tour is the Skilling Open with a prize fund of 1 lac US dollars. The event will witness players like Carlsen, Nakamura, That's not all we have a great reason to rejoice as we are the official broadcast partners where Sagar Shah will do live commentary along with Amruta Mokal and IM Soumya Swaminathan.

Samay, Vaibhav, Anirban and Joel enter the Semi-Finals of Comedians on Board III

21/11/2020 -

What a day it was at the Comedians on Board III. The much anticipated Biswa Kalyan Rath vs Samay Raina game took place! Samay was in his element as he decimated his opponent with tremendous accuracy and purposeful moves. Defending champion Anirban Dasgupta has made it to the Semi-finals making short work of Abish Mathews. Vaibhav Sethia played a great game to beat Abhishek Upmanyu. The find of the tournamennt Angad Singh Ranyal's dream run finally came to a halt at the hands of Joel D'souza. IM Sagar Shah brings to you all the action from the quarter finals. He also discusses some of the critical moments from the pre-quarterfinals. An illustrated report.

FIDE launches the First Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities

21/11/2020 -

Team India will begin their campaign today in the first edition of FIDE Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities. Former World Disabled champion IM Shashikant Kutwal will lead the team comprising of six-time National Blind champion Kishan Gangolli, Naveen Kumar A, six-time IPCA World champion Jennitha Anto K, Shashidhar K M, former National 'B' runner-up Aryan Joshi, reigning National Deaf champion Rohit Sharma and Vaishali Nrendra Salavkar. The tournament will witness the participation of 61 teams from 45 different countries comprising of about 400 players which will conclude on 3rd December, International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Photo: FIDE

Angad Singh, Nishant Tanwar and Kusha Kapila steal day 1 of COB3

20/11/2020 -

32 of the top stand-up comedians of India came together on the 19th of November 2020 to kick off the Comedians on Board 3. It's a knockout tournament with a time control of 10+0. 16 players out of the 32 advanced to the pre-quarter finals while 16 had to go back home. While most of the results went as predicted, there were three players who won the hearts of everyone in the crowd! Angad Singh Ranyal for his fantastic knockout of Rahul Subramanian, Kusha Kapila for holding her nerves against Kaneez Surka and Nishant Tanwar aka Rider for showing how quickly one can improve at chess by beating Tanmay Bhat. 74000+ people witnessed the game of Samay Raina and Sumit Sourav which broke the live viewing records of the Online Olympiad 2020. A detailed report on day one of Comedians on Board 3 by IM Sagar Shah

Last call to register for this Sunday's 16th Maheshwaranand Saraswati Memorial Online Blitz Open

20/11/2020 -

Buddhibal Kreeda Trust (BKT) under the mentorship of Prakash Kunte (father of GM Abhijit Kunte and WIM Mrunalini Kunte) has organized over 150 tournaments. After having three successful online events since April, they are be back with a bigger prize fund of ₹60000. The 16th edition of the tournament Shri Maheshwaranand Online Blitz Open will be held online this Sunday from 6 p.m. IST in Vishy Anand Arena of ChessBase India Room in Playchess. The tournament holds the first prize of ₹15000. With rating category prizes along with prizes for women, it's a tournament you cannot afford to miss. Just over a day left to register, so hurry up and register if you haven't yet. Entry is FREE for GMs, IMs, WGMs and WIMs. For everyone else Entry fee is ₹300 for Indians and €5 for foreigners. Registration is open till 21st November 6 p.m. IST. Photo: Buddhibal Kreeda Trust

Join Vishy Anand for #GadgetFreeHour on Friday 20th November

19/11/2020 -

Seven-time world champion, the Pride of the Nation - Vishy Anand has been tirelessly working towards the betterment of mankind by spreading various awareness message. We are all aware of the fact that Vishy Anand became the Ambassador for Environment Education of WWF India (World Wide Fund for Nature-India) earlier this year. Tomorrow Friday 20th November on the occasion of World Children's Day from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. IST, Vishy Anand will be joining the #GadgetFreeHour on gadgetfreehour.com website. Don't forget to join him. Check out the article to find out his message on the need of a gadget free hour for all of us in our daily life. Photo: ParentCircle

Tata Steel Chess India Rapid and Blitz 2020 cancelled owing to Covid-19 pandemic

19/11/2020 -

Tata Steel Chess India was the first Super tournament to take place in India in the year 2018. The previous iteration in 2019 was part of the Grand Chess Tour and witnessed the participation of world champion Magnus Carlsen and also the first Official Fischer Random world champion Wesley So. Nakamura and Anand - the winner of first Tata Steel Chess India Rapid and Blitz respectively in 2018 also returned for the second consecutive year. Many chess players, enthusiasts of the sport were looking forward to the third edition of this great spectacle to make its return this year, however due to the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, much to the dismay of the entire chess universe, it had to be cancelled keeping in view of health and safety concerns. Photo: Official site

Leon and Souhardo dominate First Saturday November 2020

18/11/2020 -

While the number of over-the-board has dwindled a lot since the Coronavirus Pandemic took over early this year, one Indian kid has continued his quest to become India's next GM. 14-year-old IM Leon Mendonca Luke won First Saturday GM November 2020 emphatically with an unbeaten 7.5/9 and a performance of 2688. Since he has crossed 2500 this month, he is just a GM-norm away from becoming India's next GM. 13-year-old Souhardo Basak secured his second IM-norm with a score of 7.0/9 and a performance of 2477. He is an IM-norm and 2400 rating away from becoming India's next IM. 18-year-old Shubham Bandikatte scored 7.0/10 to win the FM section. Photo: IO Nagy Laszlo

ChessBase 16 - The new features Part 5

17/11/2020 -

ChessBase 16 is already in the starting blocks and it is available now. Now everyone wants to know: what are the new features in this version? What innovations are on the horizon? And what is the "key to new ideas"? Jeroen Van Den Belt, who has been active for ChessBase since Fritz 7, presents interesting innovations in the video. The last part of the five-part series deals with the new "chat" design and its features. ChessBase 16 is out now. Order it right away if you haven't yet. Photo: ChessBase

ChessBase 16 - The new features Part 4

16/11/2020 -

ChessBase 16 is already in the starting blocks and will be released on 17th November 2020. Now everyone wants to know: what are the new features in this version? What innovations are on the horizon? And what is the "key to new ideas"? Jeroen Van Den Belt, who has been active for ChessBase since Fritz 7, presents interesting innovations in the video. Part 4 of the five-part series deals with "raytracing", what it means and what it can be used for. Photo: ChessBase

32 well-known comedians of India will fight it out in Comedians on Board 3

15/11/2020 -

It's one of the most exciting events coming up! 19th, 20th and 21st of November will witness 32 of the most famous comedians in India take on each other in a knock-out tournament named Comedians on Board (COB) to decide who is the best chess player among them! This is the third edition of the event. With a prize fund of Rs 500,000 (6700 USD) and comedians having millions of followers taking part, this is sure to boost the viewership and following of the sport. We bring you the favourites of the event and tell you about the prize money, schedule, mentors and more.

ChessBase 16 - The new features Part 3

15/11/2020 -

ChessBase 16 is already in the starting blocks and will be released on 17th November 2020. Now everyone wants to know: what are the new features in this version? What innovations are on the horizon? And what is the "key to new ideas"? ChessBase co-founder Matthias Wuellenweber, who has developed all ChessBase versions since 1986 with his team, presents the most interesting innovations in a video. Part 3 of the five-part series (in which ChessBase programmer Jeroen van den Belt is also involved) deals with "Novelty-Mining" and how it is done.

The Queen's Gambit - Episode 6 review

14/11/2020 -

The Queen's Gambit Episode 6 is titled 'Adjournment'. It is a term which we don't hear often these days because it is no longer used in tournaments. In fact it has been abolished for more than two decade ago. We get to see how a chess player is ready to stay at almost any condition, just to improve their game. A very good preparation does not necessarily guarantee a very good performance at the tournament. Strong players can also hit rock-bottom, they are also vulnerable just like any other human being. Getting a sponsor and dealing with personal issues and perform at the highest level is not an easy task, even for the strong ones. Check out Episode 6 review. Photo: Netflix stream

ChessBase 16 - The new features Part 2

13/11/2020 -

ChessBase 16 is already in the starting blocks and will be released on 17th November 2020. Now everyone wants to know: what are the new features in this version? What innovations are on the horizon? And what is the "key to new ideas"? ChessBase co-founder Matthias Wuellenweber, who has developed all ChessBase versions since 1986 with his team, presents the most interesting innovations in the video. Part 2 of the five-part series (in which ChessBase programmer Jeroen van den Belt is also involved) deals with "opening surveys" and how they are calculated.

Grandmaster Chess Ep 02: Tania Sachdev's Didactic turnabout against Swati Ghate

12/11/2020 -

With Vidit Gujrathi presenting his flamboyant victory against the legendary Vladimir Kramnik, the all-new Grandmaster Chess series piloted with a cracker of a first episode last month. The second instalment of the show therefore only saw the interest snowball, as this time all the four comedians - Samay Raina, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Vaibhav Sethia, and Anirban Dasgupta - came thronging in to join the ever genial host Sagar Shah. The guest was IM Tania Sachdev, and the game she selected for the occasion was her win against WGM Swati Ghate from the 37th Indian Women's Championship, 2011.

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