How grandmasters think

Report from Goa by Sagar Shah

The 35th Indian National Team Championship and the 13th National Women Team Championship were held from the 20th to 26th of February in Panaji, Goa, located on the western coast. Goa is the smallest state of India, however, in terms of per capita GDP the richest state in the country.

As reported in my previous article the National Team Championships were won convincingly by the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) in the Open as well as the women section. The Open team had an amazing rating average of 2616 and included super strong players like B. Adhiban, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Vidit Gujrathi , Abhijeet Gupta and Murali Karthikeyan. The PSPB women’s team too had two stars in former World Junior Champion WGM Soumya Swaminathan and innumerable times National Champion IM Nisha Mohota.

After the tournament was over we did something unique. The players were asked select one of those moments from their game which was crucial according to them. They were then asked to explain their thought process during that position and how they made a specific decision.

These positions are now presented to you and the answers to them in the form of videos analysis of these players. This was done with the sole intention of getting the readers of ChessBase to know how these great players think during the game. The best way to benefit from these videos is to think over a given position for a few minutes, get acquainted with it, and then listen to the protagonists speak.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly

A voracious calculator on the chess board, Surya Shekhar Ganguly has been amongst the best players of the country for a long time now. He was a member of Vishy Anand’s team for many years and helped him to defend World Championship titles against Kramnik, Topalov and Gelfand. Ganguly has also scored wins against strong players like Svidler, Aronian, Wojtaszek, Naiditsch etc.

Ganguly vs Akshat Khamparia

White to play

Your task is to come up with an effective idea for the White side. Once you have done that you can view the meticulous way in which Ganguly analyses.

B. Adhiban

Dubbed as the most talented youngster in India, Adhiban is just 22 years old but already flaunts a rating of 2630. He has won many international events, most notable being the Sants Open in Barcelona in 2013 and Biel Open in 2014. Just a few days ago he beat Wei Yi, who is the youngest player to have crossed the Elo of 2700.

B. Adhiban vs P. Karthikeyan

White to play. Adhiban asks the readers to come up with a plan for White.
What exactly must White do here in order to gain the initiative?

IM Nisha Mohota

Apart from being an International Master Nisha Mohota is an extremely lively person. In her inimitable style she shows you a position in her game against a 1800 player where she botches up a very simple win. There is a wonderful message that Nisha wants to convey through this endgame that she shows.

Nisha Mohota vs C. Sunyukhta

White to play and win

Pictures by Amruta Mokal

Links Official tournament site 119 games in PGN You can use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.