Category: Uncategorized

Mayor’s Cup: Eventful start

The Mumbai Mayors Cup witnessed an eventful start with the top seeds having no problems in dispatching their lower rated opponents. As many has 18 Grand Masters and 16 International Masters are participating in this event. Five players are rated above 2600.

The middle and lower boards however saw a lot of upsets with lower seeds making the most of their chances. Unheralded youngster from Maharashtra Sammed Shete (2071) beat Bangladeshi GM Abdulla Al-Rakib (2498) while Tamil Nadu player Sa Kannan (2003) beat IM Himanshu Sharma (2420), among the most notable reverses.

Check the pairings for Round 2 here.

IASI Open: GM Sengupta joins two others in lead

Indian GM Deep Sengupta (2571) defeated GM Vladimir Onischuk (2669) to join Ukranian GM Yuriy Kuzubov (2650) and Turkish GM Baris Esen (2563) at 4.5/5.

GM Abhijeet Gupta, GM Vishnu Prasanna and GM Sundararajan Kidambi won their respective games. GM Gupta and GM Prasanna move to 4.5/5 while GM Kidambi has 3.5/5.

Check the Round 6 pairings here.

IASI Open: IM Doncea leads, Four Indians in fray

The 2015 IASI Open began in Romania with four Indians in fray. The end of four rounds saw IM Vladimir Doncea of Romania take sole lead with 4.0/4.

GM Deep Sengupta is tied for second place with 3.5/4 after holding second seeded GM Igor Kovlenko to a draw. GM Abhijeet Gupta and GM Vishnu Prasanna meanwhile had sedate starts to feature at 3.0/4. GM Sudararajan Kidambi is at 2.5/4.

You may check the pairings for Round 5 here.

Bosna Open Round 3: 7 GMs in joint lead

The 3rd round of the Bosna International Open 2015 saw 3 GMs – Robert Markus, Predojevic and Antipov Mikhail – being held to draws by FM Gazik, GM Drazic and FM Burkovic respectively. However, the rest of the results on the top boards went in the favour of the higher-rated players.

Thus, at the end of the 3rd round, 7 Grandmasters lead the pack with a perfect score of 3/3.  With GM vs GM encounters on all of the top 4 boards in the next round, the 4th round of this 9-round open promises to be quite an interesting one.

Complete Round 3 Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr168569.aspx?lan=1&art=2&rd=3&turdet=YES&flag=30&wi=984

French Team Championship: Favourites have easy day

The Top 12 French Team Championship, 2014 took off at Le Grau-du-Roi at France. Eight players play for each team in a course of an eleven round all-play-all.

The winners for last three years in a row, Clichy, look to defend their title and boast of names such as Wesley So, Vachier-Lagrave, Jakovenko, among other stars.

All the favourites won their games without much hiccups, except perhaps in the match at board 6, where team Evry managed to hold off team Mulhouse, winning the match 5-3.

Check the pairings and standings here.

45th Bosna International Tournament starts today!

The 45th edition of the Bosna International Tournament is all set to commence today with a total of 142 players participating. The field of this 9 round event is quite strong with as many as 19 Grandmasters in the fray.

The tournament will be played over a period of 7 days starting from 30th May to 5th June. Some of the strong players participating are:

1) GM Markus (2628)

2) GM Predojevic (2623)

3) GM Kozul (2620)

4) GM Nikolic (2618)

5) GM Stevic (2596)

Complete Starting List: http://chess-results.com/tnr168569.aspx?lan=1&art=0&turdet=YES&flag=30&wi=984

Chinese Championship: Wei Yi becomes the Chinese National Champion

Despite losing his last round game to World Junior Champion GM Lu Shanglei (2606), GM Wei Yi (2718) won the Chinese National Chess Championship, 2015 with a score of 7.5/11.

He finished half a point ahead of GM Ding Liren (2757) who beat IM Wang Chen (2536) to finish with 7.0/11. GM Yu Yangyi (2723) meanwhile lost his last round encounter to remain stranded at 6.5/11.

Check out the final ranking cross-table here.

Chinese Championship: Wei Yi draws to keep one point lead

GM Wei Yi (2718) drew his tenth round game with GM Wang Hao (2710) to keep the lead of a healthy point over the second placed GM Yu Yangyi (2723). He has 7.5/10 points.

GM Yangyi defeated IM Wang Chen (2536) to stay in the second spot with 6.5/10. The top seeded GM Ding Liren (2757) settled for a draw in his game to slip to the third spot with 6.0/10.

Check out the ranking cross-table after 10 rounds here.

Chinese Championship: Wei Yi leads

Chinese prodigy GM Wei Yi (2718) stands atop the standings at the end of nine rounds of play with 7.0/9 at the 2015 Chinese Chess Championship. He drew his game with GM Zhao Jun (2613) in a fairly quick game which nevertheless petered out till the bare kings left on the board after a series of forced exchanges resulted in a drawn ending.

The strongest Chinese player ever, GM Ding Liren (2757) settled for a draw to be tied at the second spot with GM Yu Yangyi (2723) with 5.5/9. GM Yu Yangyi was able to outsmart IM Lin Chen (2460) with an impressive display of precision in an instructive finish.

You may view the ranking cross-table after nine rounds here.

Khanty FIDE GP Final: Caruana & Nakamura qualify for the Candidates!

The 11th and Final round of the Khanty-Mansiysk FIDE Grand Prix 2015 saw just one decisive game as Svidler overcame Jobava with the White pieces in a French Defence game.

The above result, however, had no impact on the top standings as Jakovenko, Nakamura and Caruana jointly won the tournament. But the jackpot was bagged by the latter two who made it to the next Candidates Tournament courtesy of their superior scores at the end of the 2014-15 Grand Prix cycle. The winner of the Candidates Tournament will gain the right to challenge World Champion Magnus Carlsen for a World Championship Match.


Complete Round 11 Results:

Karjakin

 2753 ½-½ Gelfand 2744

Nakamura

 2799 ½-½ Jakovenko 2738

Giri

 2776 ½-½ Caruana 2803
Dominguez 2734 ½-½ Grischuk

2780
Svidler 2734 1-0 Jobava

2699

Tomashevsky

 2749 ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave 2754

Final Standings:

RANK

 NAME RTG

PTS

1

 Jakovenko Dmitry 2738 6½
2 Nakamura Hikaru 2799

6½

3

 Caruana Fabiano 2803 6½
4 Dominguez Perez Leinier 2734

6

5

 Gelfand Boris 2744 6
6 Svidler Peter 2734

5½

7

 Grischuk Alexander 2780 5½
8 Giri Anish 2776

5½

9

 Karjakin Sergey 2753 5½
10 Tomashevsky Evgeny 2749

5

11

 Jobava Baadur 2699 4

12

 Vachier-Lagrave Maxime 2754 3½