Author: Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

R Vaishali tried her best but came up second best in the semi-finals of the World Blitz Chess Championship against eventual winner Ju Wenjun of China. The Indian youngster was rewarded for her efforts in New York with a bronze medal nonetheless and her podium finish capped a phenomenal year for Indian chess players. In an unusual scenario in the open section, Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi shared the title. Carlsen won the first two games in the final and looked like running away with the title before Nepomniachtchi won the last two games to draw level.…

R Vaishali was the lone Indian left in contention after the first day of the World Blitz Chess Championship held in New York. The player from Chennai finished on top in the women’s section after 11 rounds. The final day will see the top eight fight it out in a knockout format. Vaishali will face Zhu Jiner of China in her quarterfinal. The Indian contingent failed to make a mark in the open section. Forget the top eight, there were none of them even in the first 20 after 13 rounds. R Praggnanandhaa was 23rd with 8.5 points. That was…

Koneru Humpy ensured that Indian chess players ended the year on a high by winning the world rapid championship in New York, even as Arjun Erigaisi’s chances of qualifying for the Candidates through the FIDE Circuit ended following a disappointing final day. It was Humpy’s second world rapid title after 2019. She finished runner-up in 2023. Humpy won the event, dubbed the Wall Street Gambit in dramatic fashion, by clinching the 11th and last round game. Seven players, including Humpy and India’s Dronavalli Harika, were tied on 7.5 points heading into the final game. While the other six played out…

Arjun Erigaisi is not letting it go without a fight. To qualify for the Candidates next year, he has to win the ongoing world rapid chess competition. That’s not all. The player he is trailing in the qualification race through the FIDE Circuit, Fabiano Caruana of USA, has to finish outside the top 23. After nine of the 13 rounds, the Indian youngster is tied at the top on points and third on tie-break score. He has seven points, with three others. Caruana is 24th with six points. It is going just the way Arjun would have liked. He can…

On a day Indian players moved into the joint lead in the open and women’s sections, the big bang came from an unexpected quarter. Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the world rapid and blitz chess championship in New York after the organisers refused to allow him to play wearing a pair of jeans. You read it right. This is not a writing error. FIDE — the world governing body of chess — has a dress code which doesn’t allow jeans for players of either sex in the competitions it conducts. Carlsen was fined $200 after the seventh round (second round of…

The Indian campaign at the world rapid and blitz chess championship in New York got off to a modest start. Raunak Sadhwani and Arjun Erigaisi scored four points each from the first five rounds in the rapid format – to be played over 13 rounds – in the open section. Four players, lower rated than the top guns, secured 4.5 points each. At the moment, Raunak is fifth on the table and Arjun 12th. Magnus Carlsen, the reigning champion and World No. 1 across formats, endured a disappointing day in the event dubbed the Wall Street Gambit, because of the…

Hopes are high and expectations moderate. Their wonder year notwithstanding, the Indian youngsters are not among the favourites in the world rapid and blitz chess championship beginning in New York. That’s because they are not as proficient in the shorter formats. Their exploits in the classical or longest format shouldn’t be a yardstick when it comes to speed chess. The world rankings across the variations make it clear. In the open section in classical, there are three Indians in the top-10 and five in the top-25. This number is two in the top-25 in rapid including Viswanathan Anand, a…

Indian chess has had a fabulous 2024. World champion (D Gukesh), Olympiad clean sweep, an under-19 girls’ world champion (Divya Deshmukh), a best player award in the Global Chess League (Nihal Sarin) — they ticked boxes that will be hard to match. As Viswanathan Anand said after Gukesh scaled the highest peak, he would like to be proven wrong, but it will be difficult to top this. Now, all of a sudden, these players find themselves in a territory they have not excelled yet at the senior level. The World Rapid and Blitz Championship will be held in New York…

An 18-year-old who looks and behaves beyond his age, he turns up suited-booted for his games and sports a sacred white dot on his forehead. He doesn’t talk big and stays calm at the time of jubilation. When the year started, nobody had an inkling that this boy from Chennai would be the runaway sportsperson of the year for India. Nobody ruled his or her sports in 2024 like D Gukesh did. In few other disciplines — possibly with the exception of French swimmer Leon Marchand, who won four Olympic gold medals in Paris — did an individual win every…

The best thing about the D Gukesh fairytale is it doesn’t end there. He is, at the moment, on top of a pyramid which has a strong foundation. There are several Indians already at the elite level. A few more are getting closer. The depth in chess is formidable and the rate of growth high. India is second in the world, behind the USA, in the average Elo ratings of a country’s top 10 players. The new world champion not being the highest-rated Indian confirms this is a serious pool. That honour goes to Arjun Erigaisi, who has become the…