Latest news with #GukeshDommaraju
NDTV
4 days ago
- Sport
- NDTV
Chess: India Set To Host FIDE World Cup 2025
India is set to host the FIDE World Cup 2025, scheduled for October 30 to November 27. The tournament will feature the world's best players battling for the coveted title and qualification spots in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament, according to the FIDE World Cup website. The FIDE World Cup 2025 will feature 206 players competing in a knockout format--a dynamic and unpredictable system where the losing player in each round is eliminated. The top three finishers of the 2025 World Cup will earn direct qualification for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, which determines the challenger for the World Chess Championship. India has become a dominant force in the chess world, thanks in part to five-time World Champion and FIDE Deputy President Viswanathan Anand, whose efforts and legacy have been instrumental in popularising chess in the country. India's young stars include Gukesh Dommaraju, who became the youngest FIDE World Chess Champion at 18, Praggnanandhaa R, the runner-up of the 2023 World Cup, and Arjun Erigaisi, currently ranked world number five. In 2024, both the Indian Open and Women's teams claimed their first-ever gold medals at the Chess Olympiad--a historic achievement further highlighted by four individual gold medals won by Gukesh, Erigaisi, Deshmukh, and Agrawal. Koneru Humpy secured gold at the 2024 FIDE Women's Rapid Championship, and Vaishali Rameshbabu earned bronze at the 2024 FIDE Women's Blitz Championship. India has also recently hosted major events, including the FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022, Tata Steel Chess India, the FIDE World Junior U20 Championships 2024, and the 5th leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix (April 2025). Recently, Indian GM Humpy created history by becoming the first-ever Indian woman to reach the semifinals of the FIDE Women's Chess World Cup. A solid draw in the second game of her quarterfinal clash against China's IM Song Yuxin was enough to seal the deal.
The Guardian
11-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Chess: Carlsen fights off Gukesh in Zagreb as ChessFest returns to Trafalgar Square
It looked as if the Carlsen era might finally be over. The Norwegian, 35, had just lost his second game in a row to India's world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, 19, who was on a streak of five successive wins and leading the Zagreb event three points ahead of Carlsen. The game was like their first in Stavanger, where Carlsen had spoiled a winning position and images of his frustrated table thump went round the world. 'Now we can question Carlsen's domination,' said Garry Kasparov. Except this time the sequel was different. The format changed from rapid to blitz and Carlsen launched his own eight-game unbeaten streak including a win against the Indian teenager using 'old man's chess' with no tactics, while Gukesh tailspun into a catastrophic run of 1.5/9. An alternative description would be that Carlsen reverted to the style of Grind Like a Grandmaster, co-authored with England's David Howell. At the end of the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz, part of the Grand Chess Tour sponsored from St Louis by the billionaire Rex Sinquefield, Carlsen banked another $40,000 winner's cheque, his fourth in six starts in Croatia. He scored 22.5/36, Wesley So (US) 20, Gukesh 19.5. There was a third Gukesh v Carlsen game, but that proved a damp squib as the pair opted for a well-known drawing line in the Ruy Lopez Berlin. Overall, it remains a successful 2025 for Carlsen, who achieved his sixth successive tournament victory of the year following the Chessable Masters, the Paris Freestyle Grand Slam, the Grenke Freestyle Open, the Classic and Stavanger. 'When nobody else has a great performance, my B-game is usually enough' said Carlsen. 'It was a fairly even tournament overall, and nobody could break away from the pack. It doesn't feel like I've won really. It feels like I just came, played alright, and nobody else did anything special.' Meanwhile, the modest Gukesh continues to meditate at the start of every game and to emphasise that he is still working continuously in self-improvement. Carlsen has other issues. Next week at Wynn Las Vegas is the third of five tournaments in the $3.5m Freestyle Grand Slam, the series based on random starting positions for every game. In a qualifier for the final place, Carlsen's arch-rival, Hans Niemann, unexpectedly won through. The next leg of the Grand Slam was planned for Delhi, but it has been cancelled due to a lack of local sponsors. In a simultaneous announcement, Jan Henric Buettner, the German entrepreneur who has been the public face of Freestyle, resigned as its chief executive and will be replaced by Thomas Harsch. This may raise questions about whether Freestyle's campaign to gain wider acceptance in the chess community is faltering. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion More details have been released of Sunday's free 11am-7pm ChessFest in Trafalgar Square, for which the weather forecast is hot and sunny. You and your children can play blitz or simultaneous games against England's leading grandmasters, there will be living chess with human pieces, a transatlantic prodigy match, puzzle contests, free tuition for chess novices, and much more. Fuller details are also available for other ChessFests in Portishead on Saturday, Hull on Sunday, and Liverpool on 20 July. English international tournament victories these days are rare, so it is something to celebrate like London buses when two come along at once. The 2022 British Champion, Harry Grieve, won the Vitoria-Gasteiz Open in Spain, scoring an unbeaten 7.5/9 to edge two others on tie-break and winning a much admired bishop endgame. Meanwhile, at the South Wales International in Bridgend, the Kent IM Aaravamudhan Balaji, 21, outpaced several other GMs and IMs to win first prize with an unbeaten 8/9. The Fide Women's World Cup is under way in Batumi, Georgia, It qualifies three players for the 2026 Women's Candidates, so has a strong entry. There have already been some shocks. Aleksandra Goryachkina, one of the favourites, lost her first game while the USA's Irina Krush hung her queen in an all-US clash with Carissa Yip. Unfortunately, there are no British entrants. The event can be followed daily on lichess. 3980 1 Bxd6! If 1…Qxd6 2 Re8+ Kh7 3 Qb1+ and 4 Qxa2 wins a rook. If 1…Re2 2 Bf4! Qxf4 3 Re8+ and 4 Qxf4 wins the queen. The game ended 1 Bd2?? Qh3! 2 Ra3?? Ne4! and White resigned due to 3 fxe4 Rxa3 while otherwise Black mates by Qg3+ Kh1 Nf2 mate or by Qg3+ Kf1 Qf2 mate.
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Chess: Carlsen finally achieves 2900 rating as Niemann aims to be Las Vegas party pooper
For years the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, tried to achieve a 2900 classical rating but he always peaked 10-20 points short of the round figure. The Norwegian, 34, had a personal best of 2889, achieved in 2014. That was 33 points ahead of Garry Kasparov's highest figure and 100 ahead of Bobby Fischer. Carlsen made later attempts but could never get past the 2880s, while the numbers had an eerie similarity to the 28,000s and 29,000s at the top of Everest where George Mallory and Andrew Irvine perished in 1924. In the new Freestyle rating list Carlsen at 2909 is nearly 100 points ahead of Hikaru Nakamura in second place, with his performance boosted by his perfect 9/9 at Grenke Karlsruhe. In contrast, the Fide world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, ranks a lowly 26th with 2701 points. Carlsen will hope to maintain his new rating next month when the third leg (of five) of the Freestyle $3.75m Grand Slam takes place on 16-20 July at Wynn Las Vegas. The field of 16 will include most of the usual top names but there will be particular interest in one who could turn out a party pooper. Hans Niemann, the 22-year-old whose game with Carlsen at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup led to a $1m lawsuit, was invited to the Paris leg of the Freestyle Grand Slam but withdrew for undisclosed personal reasons. Now, having turned down the easy entrance, Niemann has got in by a much harder route, qualifying for the Las Vegas leg by winning a 16-player knockout where he defeated four top-class opponents, including the former world classical champion Ding Liren. Niemann has also shown significantly improved results in Titled Tuesday, where, in recent weeks, his performances have matched those of Carlsen and Nakamura. Chess in the past five years has enjoyed powerful boosts. Netflix's The Queen's Gambit and its heroine, Beth Harman, were a viewing success, the Niemann v Carlsen lawsuit was widely publicised, Carlsen's personality is popular, while the leading chess site, has millions of blitz games played every day and is also very successful. As a consequence, the incomes of the top 10 or 20 grandmasters have soared from events like the St Louis organised Grand Chess Tour and the $3.75m Freestyle Grand Slam. This year, for the first time, the Esports World Cup, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will include chess (10-minute games without any per-move increment and a $1.5m prize pool). In 2026 Fide's $2m official world championship series will resume centre stage, as India's Gukesh defends his crown against the winner of the eight-player Candidates. Meanwhile, back in Britain, participation remains high but financial returns do not match the stellar numbers. A new survey from reveals that its UK online membership has reached an astonishing 8.9 million players, behind only the US (43.9 million) and India (20.4 million). This stratospheric figure is 600 times that for the membership of the English Chess Federation, which in 2023 was officially 14,567. Worse for the ECF, the £500,000 government grant for elite chess, which Rishi Sunak introduced in 2023, was axed completely as part of the Treasury's departmental cuts at the end of April 2025. One consequence of this is that the rewards for playing success in Britain do not compare with the massive amounts on offer in world events. Next month's English Championship in Warwick (18-21 July) offers £2,000-£1,250-£750 for its top three, while the week-long British Championship in Liverpool from 31 July to 9 August has £5,000-£2,500-£1,500. The highest ever British Championship first prize was £8,000 in 2011. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion There is an obvious event which could make a big difference, and ought to tempt some of the millions of UK residents who play exclusively online blitz on to try a day of over-the-board blitz chess as well. This is the UK open blitz championship, which was launched in 2023 and is now in its third year. Full details for the tournament can be found here. The UK blitz championship uses a three minutes per game plus a two-second per move increment, which is also the most normal time control for blitz games. The championship will have 16 one-day regional qualifying tournaments in August and September, followed by a one-day final at Leamington Spa on 22 November. The one-day qualifiers will be in London (three events at Golders Green, Hampton, and Harrow) Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Southampton. Many masters and grandmasters are expected to take part. The total prize fund will be in excess of £10,000. To enter any of the qualifiers, click here. 3978: It's mate in six by 1 Rg6+! hxg6 2 Rxg6+ Kh7 3 Rg2+! Kh6 4 Qe3+! Kh5 5 Qxe5+ Kh4 6 Qg5 mate.
News18
18-06-2025
- Business
- News18
NODWIN Gaming Joins Hands With Chess.com And ChessBase India to Build future Of Chess Esports In India
The partnership combines NODWIN Gaming's expertise in production and broadcast, ChessBase India's grassroots network and global platform to revolutionise chess in India In a landmark move set to shape the future of chess in India, NODWIN Gaming, a leader in South Asia's esports and gaming sector, has announced a strategic partnership with the world's largest chess platform, and India's top chess media and grassroots organisation, ChessBase India. This collaboration brings together three major players from esports, content creation, and competitive chess to form a cohesive ecosystem that nurtures talent, broadens reach, and enhances India's presence on the global chess esports stage. This alliance combines the unique strengths of these leaders in the chess and gaming industry. NODWIN Gaming contributes its expertise in production, broadcasting, and commercial strategy. ChessBase India offers unparalleled access to India's vibrant chess community and grassroots networks. brings its extensive global platform, community, creator partnerships, and world-class tournament infrastructure. Together, they create a synergy aimed at developing and scaling original intellectual properties, delivering premium competitive formats, fostering deeper engagement across player and creator communities, and offering significant opportunities for brands to partner in the rapidly growing chess ecosystem. Akshat Rathee, Co-founder and Managing Director of NODWIN Gaming, stated, 'Chess is experiencing a cultural renaissance, from park benches and schoolrooms to sold-out esports arenas and creator streams. Chess has now become the fourth most-watched sport in the country, following cricket, kabaddi, and BGMI tournaments. This partnership is not just about supporting a heritage game; it's about facilitating its natural progression. By combining our unique strengths, we are creating a future-ready ecosystem that can elevate Indian chess from heritage to hype. It's time for our grandmasters to meet the energy of our digital generation." This visibility spike was evident during the World Chess Championship, exclusively streamed in India through the efforts of NODWIN Gaming, and ChessBase India. The final match between Gukesh Dommaraju and Ding Liren, which crowned Gukesh as the World Chess Champion, garnered over 24 million views, with peak concurrent viewership reaching 200,000. India plays a central role in this surge, with cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai ranking among the top chess-viewing regions globally. Indian users primarily access content via mobile, with 80.9% of viewership on smartphones, and the largest age group being 18 to 34 years old, highlighting the game's strong connection with India's digital-native Gen Z and millennial audiences. Sagar Shah, CEO of ChessBase India, commented, 'This partnership isn't just a business alliance — it's a vision to grow the chess community in India from the grassroots to the grand stage. For the past decade, we've focused on building a robust chess culture in the country. Now, with NODWIN and by our side, we aim to create more opportunities for everyone involved in the chess ecosystem." Avadh Shah, Country Director of India, added, 'Chess has been one of the most dominant and fastest-growing sports in the last three years across India and the world. In terms of both participation and viewership, chess is achieving record-breaking numbers. Given the excitement around the sport, it's fitting that leading companies within the ecosystem collaborate to further its development and invite partners to join this journey." The partnership also aligns with the rise of chess as a recognised esports discipline. At the upcoming Esports World Cup (EWC) 2025, chess will debut with a prize pool of $1.5 million. Leading Indian esports organisation S8UL will represent India in competitive chess at the Esports World Cup with its team of Grandmasters Nihal Sarin and Aravindh Chithambaram, marking the first-ever representation of an Indian esports team in competitive chess on a global stage. Their involvement highlights the growing recognition of chess as a spectator-friendly, high-skill esport. As India prepares to make its mark on this new frontier, the alliance between NODWIN Gaming, and ChessBase India promises to build the foundational infrastructure needed for long-term growth, from top-tier broadcasts and influencer-led content to community tournaments and professional leagues. Together, NODWIN Gaming, ChessBase India, and aim to establish a robust ecosystem for Indian chess that honours the nation's legacy, empowers creators, and positions India as a global hub for online competitive chess. News18 Sports brings you the latest updates, live commentary, and highlights from cricket, football, tennis, badmintion, wwe and more. Catch breaking news, live scores, and in-depth coverage. Also Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : Chess esports Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: June 18, 2025, 19:49 IST
The Hindu
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
World chess champion Gukesh is Sri Chaitanya's brand ambassador
World Chess Champion Gukesh Dommaraju and Tollywood actor Adivi Sesh were announced as the new brand ambassadors for Sri Chaitanya Educational Institutions (SCEI) on Tuesday. The duo was present at the institute's celebratory event in the wake of the IIT-JEE and NEET 2025 results here. 'Just like in chess, success in competitive exams like JEE & NEET requires strategic thinking, discipline, and mental resilience. Through this association, I am committed to inspiring students not only in academics but also in developing lifelong skills for success,' Mr. Gukesh was quoted as saying. Mr. Sesh, all praise for the institute's consistency in results, congratulated the 2025 toppers. SCEI directors Sridhar Yalamanchili, Sushma Boppana, and Seema Boppanna; staff, students and their parents were present.
