Dear Friends,
This blog has been formed today (15th March, 2008) to cater to the needs of the Chess Lovers. I think you are aware that present day Chess is a variation of Chaturanga which originated in India sometime in the 6th century or earlier. The Chaturanga was played on an 8x8 board called the Ashtāpada. The game shows the four fold division of the ancient Indian Army consisting of the Infantry, elephants, cavalry and chariots. Anyway overlooking the aspect of wherever the chess originated, it is a wonderful mind game was flavoured, from time to time by the likes of Alexander Alekhine, Michail Chigorin, Bobby Fischer, Boris Spasky, José Raúl Capablanca, Dibendu Barua, Vishwanathan Anand, Praveen Thipsey, Surya Shkhar Ganguly, P Harikrishna, Shasi Kiran, Abhijit Kunte, Vagshree Thipsey, Koneru Humpy, etc. I hope the Chess aficianodos will get inputs from here regarding the International matches, any new developments in the circuit, end-games, openings, novelties etc.
In the left is the Photo of the Chess wizard and master craftsman GM Alexander Alekhine repesenting the then USSR and on the other side is Chess-madman and genius, GM Bobby Fischer (USA), who took on the might Russians (then USSR). But the Chess-king is Undoubtedly, the GM Garry Kasparov,the hero of many battles on board. However, one cannot overlook the strong end-game and positional play of another genius, GM Anatoly Karpov (then USSR) and our own "Speed Chess Hero", GM Vishwanathan Anand who is among the list of Chess Prodigies which included GM Paul Morphy, GM Jose Raul Capablanca, GM Samuel Reshevsky, GM Bobby Fischer, GM Garry Kasparov, WGM Susan Polgar (Hungary), WGM Judith Polgar (Hungary), WGM Koneru Humpy (India), etc. Ms Koneru Humpy, become the youngest female player in the history of chess to achieve a male grandmaster title. Humpy (that's her first name) achieved her final norm at the Elekes Memorial GM tournament at the age of 15 years, one month and 27 days, breaking Judit Polgar's previous record by three months.

Here are the updated statistics for GM titles so far:
Player-------------------------> Final GM norm at:
Bobby Fischer---------------------> 15 years, 6 months, 1 day
Judit Polgar------------------------> 15 years, 4 months, 28 days
Koneru Humpy---------------------> 15 years, 1 month, 27 days
Peter Leko--------------------------> 14 years, 4 months, 22 days
Etienne Bacrot----------------------> 14 years, 2 months, 0 days
Ruslan Ponomaryov-----------------> 14 years, 0 months, 17 days
Teimour Radjabov------------------> 14 years, 0 months, 14 days
Bu Xiangzhi---------------------------> 13 years, 10 months, 13 days
The USSR have always dominated the Wold-Chess-Arena. Surprisingly we do not have too many Americans doting this space. Even small countries like Hungary and Cuba did very well in this sphere.
Indian Grandmasters (GMs):Vishwanathan Anand, Sasikiran, P. Harikrishna, Koneru Humpy, Sandipan Chanda (Bengal), SS Ganguly (Bengal), Abhijjet Kunte, Parimarjan Negi, Gopal, Neelotpal Das (Bengal), Deepan Chakravarty (Bengal), P. Magesh Chandran, Pravin Thipsay, D.Barua (Bengal), Ramesh, Tejas Bakre.

At the end I would like to say that, In this blog one will find regular updates on the events related to Chess from across the globe. I had long wanted to create a blog on Chess which is one of my favourite mindsports and today my wish has been fulfilled. I hope the contents of this blog will be useful to one and all.

Investor/Traders/Readers of this blog,viz.www.sumanspeakschess.blogspot.com, can send me their feedbacks at:suman2005s@rediffmail.com/sumanm2007s@gmail.com. I wish you all the sucesss in all your future endeavours.

Best wishes,

Suman Mukherjee
15th March, 2008.
India.
http://www.sumanspeaks.blogspot.com/

www.sumanspeaksplus.blogspot.com

Origin of chess is UP

9 th Mar 2007

Akhilesh Kumar Singh

Times News Network

LUCKNOW: It's like a Taj-like glory for Uttar Pradesh. A group of German Indologists has claimed to have resolved the controversy over the origin of chess in favour of Kannauj, a township about 75 km from Kanpur in the state.

Different countries, at some point in time, have been associated with the game's invention including India, China, Persia (Iran), Egypt, Assyria, Arabia, Greece, Ireland and Uzbekistan. Many countries claim to have invented chess in some incipient form. But the Indologists' group has almost come to the conclusion that chess originated in Kannauj when it was the capital of Maukhari kingdom in the 6th century.

The Maukhari ruler Sharva Varman had gifted the game of 'chaturanga' to his contemporary Persian ruler Khushrau-II in lieu of saltpetre (a variety of gunpowder). "According to the research done by us so far, we have reached the conclusion that 'chaturanga' was the initial form of chess,"German researcher Manfred A J Eder told TOI. Eder heads the group which in the past one week visited Allahabad, Varanasi, Kannauj, Kanpur and Lucknow, tracing the origin of chess. Other members of the group are — chairman of Sacrmonte Institute for Public Policy Leander A Feiler, Munich University professor Habil Sayed Ranate and Robert S Dinsmore.

A recent book 'Kannauj, The Maukhari And Chaturanga — The origin of chess and its way from India to Persia,' authored by Ranate, laid the foundation for further research. The Maukhari rulers used to play 'chaturanga' with 16 cabinet terracotta before venturing into military campaigns, said Eder. Even Banbhatta in his 'Harshcharita' had mentioned a game called 'ashtapada' similar to chess, he added.

Historical accounts say during the later Gupta period there was an Indian army school where cadets were taught about warfare through terracotta pieces on 'ashtapada', which was again the game of chess in its primitive stage, said Eder. [From Times of India]