Mariyam Posted June 10, 2025 Posted June 10, 2025 And Magnus won the event. In spite of losing the Armagddon to Arjun. That is mainly because Gukesh lost to Caruana and Wei Yi beat Hikaru in the Armageddon. Vickydev 1
Gollum Posted June 11, 2025 Author Posted June 11, 2025 18 hours ago, Mariyam said: And Magnus won the event. In spite of losing the Armagddon to Arjun. That is mainly because Gukesh lost to Caruana and Wei Yi beat Hikaru in the Armageddon. Arjun was winning against MC in the classical portion. Anyway I hate the armageddon nonsense, was brought in just to help Magnus when he couldn't win Norway classical in initial editions. Mariyam 1
Gollum Posted June 12, 2025 Author Posted June 12, 2025 Aravindh won the Armenia event. World #9. Arjun #4, Gukesh #5, Pragg #6. Just 4 points separate them, 2778-2774. First time a country other than Russia has had 4 players in top 10. And this young, probably a first since Soviet era. Similar vibes Tillu, Mariyam, velu and 1 other 4
Gollum Posted June 13, 2025 Author Posted June 13, 2025 55 year old FIDE VP Anand beats Indian #1 Arjun, with black. Tillu and Mariyam 2
Gollum Posted June 17, 2025 Author Posted June 17, 2025 (edited) Humpy leading Cairns Cup, a prestigious classical tournament for women held in St. Louis, sponsored by the Sinquefield family. Harika at 3rd. 3 rounds left. Humpy won the 2020 edition. Edited June 17, 2025 by Gollum Mariyam 1
Gollum Posted June 17, 2025 Author Posted June 17, 2025 After a long gap, India has her 86th GM. First year B. Com student from SRM. Srihari LR confirms GM title: India assured of getting its 86th grandmaster, 368 days after its 85th Over a year after getting its 85th grandmaster, India was assured of one more when 19-year-old Srihari LR from Chennai secured his third norm needed to earn the coveted title when he played against GM Iniyan Paneerselvam at the Asian Individual Men’s Chess Championship, which ended at Al-Ain in the UAE on Thursday. 7 years ago, at the age of 12 he was just 1900. Never too late to start !!!!! Vickydev, Tillu and Mariyam 3
Gollum Posted June 17, 2025 Author Posted June 17, 2025 (edited) SRM chess team now has 3 GMs, 3 IMs. Strongest university chess team on the planet , comfortably outranking Moscow State University, Webster, UT Austin, Oxbridge etc. But there is a high school team in the same city stronger than them, Velammal which had in its ranks Gukesh, Pragg. Earlier Aravindh Chithambaram. Among girls, Vaishali. That one school has produced some 12-13 GMs in less than 10 years, has chess in its curriculum They gifted Gukesh a Mercedes Benz for winning Candidates last year. And more to come, saw a video of 8-9 year olds from that school with 2200+ rating. Edited June 17, 2025 by Gollum Tillu, Mariyam and Vickydev 3
Gollum Posted June 17, 2025 Author Posted June 17, 2025 (edited) Ukraine, Germany, USA have more GMs than us, in the 90-100 range. Latter two because of many Soviet/Russian GMs switching federations. If you consider only homegrown players, USA won't even touch 50, Germany even lesser. Ukraine and Russia have more home grown GMs, than us. We should be number 2 behind Russia in next 5 years or so. Catching Russia (250 odd GMs) will take longer, at least a couple of decades. If you consider only top players from each country, we have the best top 5, probably 2nd best top 10....our quality of GMs is very high. USA will also rank high but they have imported Caruana from Italy, So from Philippines, Aronian from Armenia, Dominguez from Cuba....at least Hikaru despite being born in Japan spent his formative years in USA. Edited June 17, 2025 by Gollum Mariyam and Vickydev 2
Mariyam Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 On 6/12/2025 at 9:43 AM, Gollum said: Aravindh won the Armenia event. World #9. Arjun #4, Gukesh #5, Pragg #6. Just 4 points separate them, 2778-2774. First time a country other than Russia has had 4 players in top 10. And this young, probably a first since Soviet era. Similar vibes What is this picture in reference to? Aravindh's rise is fantastic. During the 2022 Chennai Olympiad we had 3 teams. India A, B and C. And he didn't make it to any of the teams. And now he is India #4 and World #9. Sagar Shah needs to make a video on his career so far or do a detailed interview. Divya Deshmukh beat woman world #1 Hou Yifan at the blitz event yesterday. Gollum and Tillu 2
Tillu Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 20 minutes ago, Mariyam said: What is this picture in reference to? They are the iconic fearsome pace quartet from West Indies who made every international batsman question their professional choices in cricket. Similarly Gukesh, Arjun, Pragg and Aravind will be our own Chess quartet who will make the other country chess players bang their heads in desperation for choosing Chess as their profession. That's the gist of the image. Gollum and Mariyam 1 1
Gollum Posted June 19, 2025 Author Posted June 19, 2025 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mariyam said: What is this picture in reference to? 4 horesmen of the apocalypse, quartet of 4 frightening fast bowlers assembled by Clive Lloyd in second half of 70s, which took West Indies cricket to world domination. L-R: Andy Roberts (leader of the pack), Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Joel Garner. Those guys not only picked wickets but broke bones and minds of almost all opponent batsmen. By 1979, Malcolm Marshall replaced Croft and in course of time became the leader of the next quartet, he is also unanimously considered the greatest test fast bowler of all time. This is what makes our 1983 WC win so special, we beat the legendary WI team with pace quartet at its peak (Marshall was there instead of Croft), twice in the tournament, including the final. Imagine having Bumrah, Rabada, Cummins, Hazlewood in your team but batsmen don't have hemlets or enough protection gear, and no limit on number of bouncers allowed. Gavaskar used to play dibbly dobbly medium pacers in Indian nets, Ranji, and then having to pad up against these monsters hurling thunderbolts at his face. Frightening time for all batsmen that time, Aussies had Lillee and Thomson who could be just as brutal. Edited June 19, 2025 by Gollum Tillu and Mariyam 1 1
Gollum Posted June 19, 2025 Author Posted June 19, 2025 (edited) @Mariyam, if possible, watch the documentary film 'Fire in Babylon'. And here's a short clip, where former NZ captain Jeremy Coney talks about the WI quicks. Damn funny anecdote. Edited June 19, 2025 by Gollum Mariyam and Tillu 1 1
Tillu Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 (edited) One of the best documentaries on cricket. You can watch it for free here. Edit: Unfortunately this is not a full documentary. Only 40 minutes long. Edited June 19, 2025 by Tillu Mariyam 1
Gollum Posted June 19, 2025 Author Posted June 19, 2025 34 minutes ago, Tillu said: One of the best documentaries on cricket. You can watch it for free here. Not the full version though. Mariyam 1
Tillu Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 9 minutes ago, Gollum said: Not the full version though. Yeah just saw it and found it to be not the whole documentary. Earlier around 7-8 years back, there used to be a full documentary on YouTube. Don't know if it's available on the OTT platforms. Mariyam 1
Mariyam Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 What do you guys feel about Divya or Vaishali's chances of being the Women's world champion?
Mariyam Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 (edited) Thanks for the detailed explanation @Gollum and @Tillu. Initially, I thought @Gollum added that picture to his signature and then realised that it was only for that post. I really haven't been following much cricket besides that of India in world championships and the IPL. I will however, watch the documentary. That I promise. We should revive the ICF chess club. Perhaps start the ICF championship once again. I oscillate between 1900-2000 in blitz (5+0) on lichess. Edited June 19, 2025 by Mariyam Gollum and Tillu 1 1
Tillu Posted June 19, 2025 Posted June 19, 2025 35 minutes ago, Mariyam said: Thanks for the detailed explanation @Gollum and @Tillu. Initially, I thought @Gollum added that picture to his signature and then realised that it was only for that post. I really haven't been following much cricket besides that of India in world championships and the IPL. I will however, watch the documentary. That I promise. We should revive the ICF chess club. Perhaps start the ICF championship once again. I oscillate between 1900-2000 in blitz (5+0) on lichess. The documentary is on Amazon prime. Don't know if it's geo fenced. Mariyam 1
Gollum Posted June 19, 2025 Author Posted June 19, 2025 3 hours ago, Mariyam said: What do you guys feel about Divya or Vaishali's chances of being the Women's world champion? Definitely good chances. Indian chess is well supported now, these ladies seem to have high ceiling. Competition is also lesser than it was 10-15 years ago when Hou Yifan, Anna Muzychuk, Humpy were steady 2600+ players. How cool will it be if both Pragg and Vaishali become world champions!!! Mariyam and Tillu 2
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