Chess News
The Tata Steel Rapid & Blitz will be held over five days. Three days of rapid chess followed by two days with a blitz tournament. At the end the points are added together with Rapid wins counting double. The top four players by overall standings will play a final tournament in London in early December as part of the London Chess Classic.
Reports: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4
For the rapid games, players receive 25 minutes for all moves plus 10-second delay per move starting from move one.
Grand Chess Tour standings going into Kolkata
Times in UTC.
Nov 22nd: Rapid chess, rounds 1-3 8:30 UTC (9:30 CET / 3:30 EST).
Nov 23rd: Rapid chess, rounds 4-6
Nov 24th: Rapid chess, round 7-9
Nov 25th: Blitz, rounds 1-9 (from 9.30 CET)
Nov 26th: Blitz, rounds 9-18 (from 8.30 CET)
It was a busy day on the streets of Kolkata just like any other! The buses were filled to the brim, the sellers were selling their stuff, the people were trying to reach their home. It was already quite late in the evening.
That's how a busy evening in Kolkata looks like! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
Just below the famous Gariahat flyover, a crowd had gathered. What was the reason? | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
Super GM Ding Liren was present there! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
And so was blitz king Hikaru Nakamura! | Photo: Lennart Ootes/ Grand Chess Tour
But most importantly you could see the love for chess covered in the air! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
A veteran takes on the 90+ year old Madhu Sudan Mukherjee, the oldest living chess player in the city.
The Gariahat Chess Club is situated under a fly over. It is the first chess club that is open 24x7 and all 365 days a year! It's an iconic destination in the city. Last year we had Wesley So visiting it and this year it was Nakamura and Ding Liren.
Most of the players arrived couple of days in advance and did some promotional activities. For e.g. Nakamura and Ding Liren visited the Gariahat Chess Club, Harikrishna and Anish Giri were invited to the Alekhine Chess Club, Wesley So went to the DDDBCA and Anand and Vidit were guests at the Tata Steel Office in Kolkata.
Harikrishna and Anish Giri surrounded by chess journalists, players, parents and coaches at the Alekhine Chess Club | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
The entire Q&A session was shot by ChessBase India's Shahid Ahmed | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
Wesley So visited the DDDBCA and gave away prizes for the Fischer Random tournament that was being held | Photo: Shahid Ahmed
The Taj Bengal Hotel in Kolkata is bumbling with energy. It's not just the ten world-class chess players staying in this iconic hotel. In fact, the entire Indian cricket team is hosted at the venue! And this means that the security has been amped up.
(From left to right): Tournament Director Jeroen van den Berg, Magnus Carlsen, Sourav Ganguly and IA Anantharam Rathinam | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
Sourav Ganguly is one of the most prominent personalities in India. He was one of India's finest cricket captains. As a batsman he scored over 11000 One Day International runs. He was a left-handed batsman and was so good on his off-side that he was nicknamed as the "God of Offside"! Being the current BCCI President and the India-Bangladesh test series coming up, this was busy day for Sourav. However, he was staying the same hotel and decided to spend a few minutes at the opening ceremony of the Tata Steel Chess India GCT.
When Sourav Ganguly played with Anand as his coach against Magnus Carlsen!
Sourav played 1.c4 as the inaugural move | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
1.c4 is what Anand recommended to Ganguly, and Sourav went into nostalgia mode,
I did exactly the same thing, move that pawn two squares, when my father bought me the first chessboard when I was ten-years-old.
Players after the drawing of lots | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
The amount of media interest was quite massive! | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
Chanakya Choudhary is the Group director of Tata Steel, the main sponsor of the event | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
AICF secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan, experienced arbiter Anantharam Rathinam and Chanakya Choudhary, group director of Tata Steel | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
All the players were given this memento to take home! | Photo: Lennart Ootes/ Grand Chess Tour
After the opening ceremony ended, the players were interviewed by Tania Sachdev representing the Grand Chess Tour team | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Grand Chess Tour
One video of Ding Liren and @GMHikaru playing a demonstration game between fans from Calcutta! @tschessindia . Thursday 1st round. pic.twitter.com/N2asJo8KoV
— Jeroen Van Den Berg (@Jvdbergchess) November 20, 2019
Jeroen van den Berg posted a few videos in his Twitter account. For the press conference with Anand and Vidit a few more journalists than usual in chess tournaments turned up.
This morning there was a Q&A with @vishy64theking and @viditchess for employees of TataSteel. It took place in the main office in Kolkata. @GrandChessTour @tschessindia pic.twitter.com/FcPA0cnuux
— Jeroen Van Den Berg (@Jvdbergchess) November 21, 2019
Anish Giri and Vidit then visited the local Alekhine chess club, where they were also met with a wave of enthusiasm.
Nice get together with @anishgiri and @HariChess at Alekhine Chess Club. Q and A with many children. @GrandChessTour @tschessindia pic.twitter.com/zVFkUPrjhr
— Jeroen Van Den Berg (@Jvdbergchess) November 20, 2019
