Talking about his journey, Vishwanathan Anand said he had to work hard to become the player he is today.
Slowly but surely emerging as one of India's key players, International Master Divya Deshmukh stunned higher-ranked compatriot Harika Dronavalli 2-0 in the tiebreaks to enter the semifinals of the FIDE World Women's Chess Cup in Batumi, Georgia.
Grandmaster Koneru Humpy of India made it to the quarter-finals of the World Women Chess Championship after she split point in the second game of the third round against Anna Zatonskih of the United States.
Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, the highest rated player in the fray, crashed out of the World Women's Chess Championship after failing to capitalize on her chances against Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine in the second game of the second round that concluded in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia, on Thursday.
Top-rated Grandmaster Koneru Humpy suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine in the first game of the second round at the World Women's Chess Championship, in Khanty Mansiysk (Russia), on Wednesday.
In the women's event, the country's top player Koneru Humpy has 3.5 points with two wins and three draws after five rounds as does R Vaishali who has scored three victories to go with a draw apart from a loss.
Chess icon Viswanathan Anand feels the current crop of Indian players, that he has had a role in shaping, has turned out to be "great" in grabbing crucial opportunities.
Despite impressive wins by D harika and Eesha Karavade, the Indian women's team was forced to settle for a draw against Armenia in the opening round of World Women's team chess championship in Ningbo, China, on Wednesday.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Monday
Gomes, who had beaten her Kazakh opponent in the first round too, continued her impressive form to post a 57-move win in the second.
FIDE Master Girish A Koushik of India shot into the joint lead with Armenian Grandmaster Robert Hovhannisyan, with seven points, after defeating GM Nils Grandelius of Sweden in the eighth round of the 50th World Junior Chess Championships in Chennai on Wednesday. With this victory, Koushik earned a nine-game GM norm from the event and is well-placed to annex the title.
Grandmaster and Asian champion P Harikrishna proved his mettle by outclassing Emil Sutovsky and guiding India to a much-needed 2.5-1.5 victory over Israel in the fourth round of the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo, China, on Wednesday.
In an event completely dominated by the Chinese, Ju Wenjun went on to snare the world title, defeating compatriot Lei Tingjie 3.5-2.5.
Nine-year-old Delhi boy Aarit Kapil has become the youngest Indian to beat a chess Grandmaster.
Thirty years to the day, history was repeated as Garry Kasparov defeated Viswanathan Anand in the 10th game of the Clutch Chess Legends contest to win the match with two games to spare.
Grandmaster Tania Sachdev beat Bianca Muhren of Holland to jump into the joint lead at the World Junior Girls chess championship.
On pure experience of playing big games, Humpy goes in the final as the favourite against compatriot Deshmukh.
Ding, who could become the first Chinese male to win the world title, began the tournament admitting he felt like there was "something wrong" with his mind.
Indian chess prodigy D Gukesh sealed a remarkable Chess Olympiad campaign with a decisive victory over GM Vladimir Fedoseev on Sunday in Hungary.
Top seed Parimarjan Negi was beaten in the third round of the boys' under-12 at the World Youth Championships.
India's Sahaj Grover, who achieved his final Grandmaster norm at the World Junior Chess Championship, ended his campaign at the 16th spot after losing his final-round game in the event in Athens.
In a groundbreaking moment for Indian chess, Arjun Erigaisi has become the second player from India and the sixteenth player globally to surpass the 2800 live rating mark.
'The Indian Open team was extremely well prepared and motivated to win the gold medal.' 'With two players in the world top 10 club, and four players with over 2,700 ELO points (GMs Arjun Erigaisi, D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, all below 20) and Vidit Gujrathi and P Harikrishna, it was a solid team.'
'You need hard work along with talent to reach exceptional heights.'
The second, fourth, fifth and sixth games had ended in draws.
At the world championship, players have two hours each to play the first 40 moves, with 30 minutes being added to reach move 60, before 15 minutes are added with a 30-second increment per move being then granted.
The FIDE, world chess governing body, has revealed that it tried its best to convince India to allow Norway to stage one half of the 2013 World Chess Championship match but it refused.
After playing exhaustive chess for over three decades, Viswanathan Anand has assured himself a place in the league of all time greats as he retained the World Championship crown with consummate ease against Veselin Topalov in his own den in Sofia, Bulgaria on Tuesday.
The Indian men went down to the United States of America 1-3 on Thursday and are now on the verge of going out of medal contention in the World Team Chess championship in Ningbo, China.
Abundantly talented but more significantly, incredibly cool in crunch situations, that's how India's 88th Grandmaster and World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh was described by her formative coach Srinath Narayanan, who feels the 19-year-old chess wizard's composure is comparable only to cricket great Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Gujrathi, who was a part of India's gold-winning campaign in the Chess Olympiad recently, says the sport's ecosystem needs a major overhaul to ensure players have more balance in life.
Norway's Magnus Carlsen continues to be the undisputed world No.1 with 2832.5 points, followed by United States' Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura (2802) and country-mate Fabiano Caruana (2798).
The curtailed squad that is now travelling to the Mexican capital include Rakshitta Ravi, Bommini Mounika Akshaya and Amulya Guruprasad among girls while Harshavardhan GB, Pranav Anand, Dushyant Sharma and
Indian men managed to beat a spirited Egypt in the eighth round to help themselves from occupying the bottom place in the World Team Chess Championships in Ningbo, China.
D Gukesh credited mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton for helping him tame the 'emotional pressure' of competing at the World Chess Championship.
Viswanathan Anand won the World Chess Championship beating Veselin Topalov in the final game of the 12-game tournament in Sofia (Bulgaria) on Tuesday.
World Championship challenger Dommaraju Gukesh survived by the skin of his teeth against compatriot Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.
India continued its recovery journey and downed China Two 2.5-1.5 in the seventh round of the World Women's Team Chess Championship in Ningbo on Wednesday. Mary Ann Gomes starred in India's lone victory over China Two while the remaining three games were drawn, giving the team a much-needed victory at this stage of the championship.
'I beat the strongest player in the world. Gukesh is in a different situation because Magnus is there'
India's latest GM is hoping to improve on his third placing at the last World championship in Goa.
