Sagar Shah

Sagar Shah is an International Master from India with two GM norms. He loves to cover chess tournaments, as that helps him understand and improve at the game he loves so much. He is the co-founder and CEO of ChessBase India, the biggest chess news portal in the country. His YouTube channel has over a million subscribers, and to date close to a billion views.

ChessBase India is the sole distributor of ChessBase products in India and seven adjoining countries (Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia) and the prices are tailored to the spending capacity of these countries. All ChessBase products including ChessBase software, Mega-database, Fritz, different engines and DVDs by world famous authors are available for 60% discount as compared to International prices.             

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Recent news

The inside story: Sagar Shah interviews Gukesh

12/17/2024 – Chess is booming in India and Sagar Shah, founder and driving force behind ChessBase India, has played a major role in this process. ChessBase India has also followed the career of Gukesh, the new world champion, from the very beginning. In an extensive, almost three-hour interview, Sagar Shah and Gukesh now talk about Gukesh's path to the World Championship, the 14 games of the competition and the choice of his seconds, among other things. Gukesh also reveals how and why Vincent Keymer, who is actually a rival of Gukesh, became part of the team in this revealing interview.
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The Chennai Grand Masters returns in 2024 - bigger and better

10/20/2024 – In 2023 India got its highest ever classical super tournament in the form of the Chennai Grand Masters. The tournament, with an average rating of 2711, proved to be a perfect event for fighting and high-quality chess as well as an important event in the FIDE circuit. This year the contest is back - bigger and better. Not only has the rating average of masters grown to 2729, but we also have a Challengers section with 8 talented Indian youngsters fighting for one spot in the Masters. Read on to know all the players, prize money, schedule, venue and more!
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Ziaur Rahman, Bangladeshi chess legend

7/18/2024 – Ziaur Rahman, the second grandmaster of Bangladesh and the player to have reached the highest rating in his country (2570), passed away on 5 July while playing a game of chess at the Bangladeshi National Championships. He suffered a heart attack and collapsed to the ground. Ziaur was just 50 years old. In this article, we look back at his life and remember what a gem of a person he was both on and off the board, and we also share heartfelt messages from some of the top Indian GMs. | Photo: Amruta Mokal
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The Candidates are ready - First impressions from Toronto!

4/3/2024 – The wait is over. We are one day away from kick-off at the Candidates Tournaments in Toronto, and the ChessBase India team is already on-site, producing video content for all of us to enjoy. Sagar Shah and co. have met a number of chess personalities already, including Levy Rozman (a.k.a. Gotham Chess) and Vidit Gujrathi, one of the participants in the open section. Check it out!
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Yochanan Afek's chess compositions

3/26/2024 – Yochanan Afek, International Grandmaster of chess composition, has been providing us with articles for decades. He lives in Amsterdam, where Sagar Shah caught up with him and conducted a 90-minute interview, discussing some of the great problem compositions that we have from him. We have the puzzles in a replay board, where you can follow the discussion, using the built-in engine to answer residual questions you might have. Very entertaining and instructive.
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What can you learn from Vidit

3/15/2024 – Have you ever finished last in a tournament? Well, it happened to Vidit Gujrathi at the Prague Masters 2024. As Vidit himself pointed out, this might be the first time ever that he finished last in his entire chess career. And it happened 20 days before the most important event of his life - the Candidates, this cannot really be a good sign, can it?
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The beautiful world of Anish Giri and Sopiko Guramishvili

2/24/2024 – After an intense tournament at Weissenhaus, Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal had a free week before their trip to the Prague Masters. They decided to use this time to visit the residence of Anish Giri and Sopiko Guramishvili in The Hague. The plan was to record an opening video course for ChessBase. This was done quite efficiently in three days, and the course is a 7-hour masterclass covering opening play. Moreover, the trip turned out to be much more than just recordings. For the author, experiencing the life of a beautiful family, which combines ambition, love and respect, was extremely enjoyable!
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Where is Ding?

12/4/2023 – Ding Liren won the World Chess Championship 2023 and became the 17th World Champion. It's been 200 days since the last game of chess that he has played publicly. So where is Ding Liren, what is he up to? During his period of being away from the world of chess, IM Sagar Shah managed to get in touch with him and asked him about key position in the match. Ding also speaks about life after match and more. | Photo: Anna Shtourman
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Singapore Federation CEO Kevin Goh Wei Ming teaches chess in prisons

11/28/2023 – Grandmaster Kevin Goh Wei Ming is both the CEO of the Singapore Chess Federation and an 8-time national champion at the Southeast Asian city-state. Kevin recently shared a post on X, showing his experience teaching chess at the Singapore Prison Services. IM Sagar Shah interviewed him on the topic. “Most importantly, chess has brought joy to [the inmates] in a way that perhaps serious, competitive players may never understand”. | Photos: Kevin Goh Wei Ming’s X account
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AICF announces assistance to Vidit, Pragg and Vaishali

11/21/2023 – The FIDE Candidates tournament will be held in April 2024 in Canada. Leading up to this all-important event, one that will determine the World Championship challenger, the All India Chess Federation has announced a financial assistance to Vidit Gujrathi, R. Praggnanandhaa and R.Vaishali to the tune of Rs.20,000,000 (US$240,459). This amount will be used for their training, travel, building a team and much more. It is truly a fantastic move by the National federation to support the Candidates of India!

"The biggest win of my career"

11/16/2023 – At the age of 29 years, Vidit Gujrathi did something very special: he won the FIDE Grand Swiss outright and with it a spot in the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024. In an personal conversation with Sagar Shah, Vidit speaks about what the title means to him, the role of his family and parents, and reveals his trainers. This Podcast gives an insight into the personal side of this world class GM.
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Chess in Schools

11/1/2023 – India is on its way to becoming the biggest super-power in chess. Some of the credit goes to ChessBase India, which has organized a large number of projects to foster this development. CEO Sagar Shah is now on a mission to make chess a subject of the regular school curriculum, not just to generate further champions, but to foster the social and learning skills of students. Currently he is holding a seminar on how to implement chess in schools across entire states. Here are his talking points.

The legendary Geurt Gijssen

10/4/2023 – Geurt Gijssen, born in 1934, is one of the most famous chess arbiters in the world of chess. He was the chief arbiter for the World Championship match between Kasparov and Karpov in 1987. He has been the top arbiter for several world championships, Olympiads and also the chairman of the FIDE rules commission for 20 years! What makes him so special? In this interview IM Sagar Shah sits down with Geurt and gets to know all about his life story. Towards the end Geurt also gives his advice to young and budding people who want to become chess arbiters.

Leon and Sagar discuss the Keymer

9/22/2023 – Recently we announced a very special FritzTrainer by GM Leon Mendonca, one of India's most promising young talents. It is on the Keymer Variation. In this follow-up video IM Sagar Shah invites Leon to speak more about this opening and share his ideas with us. The result is a lesson that can help you build an opening repertoire with 1.Nf3 and 2.e3. Do not miss the chance!
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Gukesh Fritztrainer: first reviews

8/3/2023 – Gukesh is one of the most promising youngsters in the world of chess. He is no longer just a talent, but has confidently marched to the very top of the chess world, where he is currently ranked no. 11, with an Elo of 2751. In March 2023, Gukesh visited the ChessBase India studio in Mumbai and together with IM Sagar Shah they recorded a video course on how to attack like a super GM. The video course was well received – here are some reviews, from a strong IM to an unrated player.
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The next big thing in Sri Lankan Chess: Thehas Rithmitha

7/27/2023 – The junior chess championships of various age categories serve a very important purpose. The talented medal winners get the limelight they need — with the adequate amount of support, these kids can go on to do great things in the chess world! One such example is 2014-born Thehas Rithmitha Kiringoda, gold medallist in the Under-9 World Schools Championships 2023. Starting off as the 21st seed among 61 players, Thehas went on to score a dominating 7½/9 and win the event! In this article, we ask Thehas a few questions about his chess journey so far, his performance in the World Schools, future goals and much more. Get to know the mindset of a young chess talent.
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Arjun visits his mega-sponsor

7/16/2023 – What happens after a company sponsors a chess player? How does it find value in the sponsorship? This article puts down the story of Arjun Erigaisi and QuantBox. QuantBox is a High Frequency Trading company, which has made one of the biggest sponsorship deals in the history of Indian chess with Arjun. Recently Arjun met the members of QuantBox at their Bangalore office, and what happened is portrayed in the article below.
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World class matches in Mahashtra

6/1/2023 – From the 1st to the 6th of June 2023, as a part of the Maharashtra Chess Festival, two matches between world class players will take place in Nagpur, India. The first is between India's no.3 GM Vidit Gujrathi, who will take on the eight-time Russian Champion Peter Svidler. The second is between the top rated junior from the state Raunak Sadhwani and former World Championship Challenger Nigel Short. We have done extensive video interviews with the players.
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