Shyam Sundar: the man who held Vladimir Kramnik!

Do you recognize the person in the above picture? Here are some clues:

1. He is a Russian

2. He became a GM without attaining the IM title!

3. He beat Garry Kasparov in 2000 to become the 14th undisputed World Chess Champion.

4. I can see most of you getting irritated because you recognized him instantly and never required the clues!

Yes, friends, I am talking about the one and only Vladimir Kramnik. One of the best chess players to have ever graced this game. Kramnik is such a legend in the game of chess that whenever a player wants to learn about positional chess, the best advice a coach can give him is, "Go and study the games of Vladimir Kramnik."

The same was the case with a young Indian GM, Shyam Sundar.

Shyam is 22-years-old and has a rating of 2484

Shyam learnt a lot from Kramnik's games when he was young. On 27th November came the day, when he was paired against the legend in the second round of the Qatar Open 2014. As Shyam himself said before the game: "I have many times used Kramnik's ideas in my opening preparation and today I have to prepare against him!"

Playing a chess legend and a player you have immense respect for is never easy! Kramnik's achievements and technique are enough to intimidate any player, not to mention that the he has a towering height of more than six feet (an article mentions that he is 6' 6").

But fighting all his fears and admiration for the opponent, Shyam played a terrific game and fought hard with the Russian giant, posing him enough problems and drawing the game with black pieces. What is particularly impressive is that Kramnik was in a creative mood and hence played an irregular setup that had no theory involved. Shyam managing to hold his own in such original positions against such an experienced player speaks volumes about his talent! Have a look at this crazy game:

Seeing this game, one of the top Russian women players, Natalia Pogonina, made a nice tweet:

This position looks like a game between two kids who don't how to castle! :) Who is better (no engine please) ? pic.twitter.com/huSUtYoNHi
— Natalia Pogonina (@Pogonina) November 27, 2014

Vladimir Kramnik vs Shyam Sundar

A dead drawn endgame against Vladimir Kramnik!- GM Erwin L'Ami looks shocked!

The above two pictures were taken by Dmitry Rukhletskiy

What Shyam has achieved is really unbelievable. I think we should congratulate him because even the best players in the world have struggled to make a draw against the Big Vlad with the black pieces!

Shyam, Me and Swapnil at Varna, Bulgaria in 2013

The quality that I love most about Shyam is that he extremely down to earth and a very humble person. He is a true lover of the game of chess and works really hard at it. He is one of the very few GMs who would prefer chess to any other interests and pass-times in life.

In our personal encounters, Shyam has never been kind to me!

My personal score against Shyam is a dismal 2.5-0.5 but I will not let that come in the way of wishing him all the best for the remaining rounds of the Qatar Open! All the best Shyam!

Addendum:

For all those who want to improve their game, I would highly recommend these two things:

This is a brilliant book entitled "Kramnik- My life and games". The games are all annotated by Kramnik himself and Magnus Carlsen has praised this book by saying that it has had a huge impact on his chess. 

You can buy the book from the top most left corner of the blog.

This is a must have ChessBase DVD in which Kramnik talks about his path to the top and how he toppled Garry Kasparov to become the world's greatest player. 

You can watch a video clip from the DVD over here:

You can buy the Kramnik DVD from here.

Some of the pictures by Amruta Mokal

Ankit's brilliancy at the Qatar Open!

The Qatar Open is the strongest Open tournament in the World. With Anish Giri and Kramnik at the top and all the 154 players almost above 2300 it promises to be one of the most exciting tournaments in the history of the game.
Particularly impressive was the performance of a young Indian grandmaster, GM Ankit Rajpara, in the first round of the tournament. (the first round took place yesterday)

20-year-old Ankit Rajpara (2494) played a brilliant game. And who was his opponent?

The German superstar: GM Arkadij Naiditsch (2719)

Not only did Ankit have the black pieces, Naiditsch was really the man in form having beaten the World Champion Magnus Carlsen at the recent Tromso Olympiad 2014.

The game was a tactical slugfest which saw Ankit drag Naiditsch's king from g1 to e4 and then finally mate him on b1! But what I loved about the entire game was this brilliant idea in the opening executed by Ankit. Let's check the opening moves:

Naiditsch's last move was g2-g4 in this position. What should Black play? Have a think and then check the answer below.

The most natural move in this position would be 9...Nh4. And Black has a decent position after that. For eg. 9...Nh4 10.Nxh4 Bxh4 11.f4 f5!? is ok.

But here Ankit chose a very interesting idea which I really liked. He played 9...Nh6 10.h3 and would you like to guess what he played now?

Black to play here. What would you do?

Ankit here played the fantastic undeveloping move 10...Ng8!!

The knight has made a full trip from g8-e7-f5-h6 and back to g8 and for what? Black's idea now is to activate his rook on h8 with the move h7-h5! So the knight has in effect achieved the job of advancing the White kingside pawns that have now become a weakness. Truly a deep concept. 

In some ways it reminds me of Maurice Ashley's term of Aikido chess where he said that you force your opponent to attack you and when he does that, he will lose his balance. You can then use the fact that your opponent is off balance and strike him back which makes him susceptible to a quick knock out. The g4-h3 moves in Aikido terms were aggressive moves and now Black will strike back with h5 when it wont be easy for White to defend.

Ankit played a brilliant attacking game which you can go through below! To beat a 2700 player in such brutal fashion speaks volumes about the young talent.

I have not yet spoken with Ankit about this game as it just happened yesterday but knowing the sort of hardworking chess player that he is, I am quite sure that he has seen this idea from the game of Alexie Shirov vs Dragan Solak. Have a look at the opening of the game.

Isn't the idea used by Dragan Solak extremely similar to that of Ankit? It's wonderful how young and ambitious GMs build a repertoire of such ideas by looking at instructive games and subject it to their memory. I remember Carlsen saying that he has studied each and every volume of My Great Predecessors by Garry Kasparov extremely carefully. By studying the games of the great masters of the past like Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca etc. the current World Champion uses their positional and tactical ideas in his own games. When similar pawn structures or piece placement arises, Magnus draws the old games from his amazing memory and looks how best he can make use of those patterns.

And how exactly do you learn such patterns? Do you keep looking at each and every game in the mega database that has been played before. While it is possible, I think it is extremely time and energy consuming. Besides you will not able to know which game is instructive and which is not. To help you out in such aspects there are some wonderful books in the market out there.
And definitely I recommend the books written by the famous author and trainer GM Jacob Aagaard!

Strategic play is a book aimed at players above the rating of say around 2200. My cousin gifted this book to me from the USA on the occasion of my marriage!(yes, I force my relatives to give me chess related gifts!) I have had immense pleasure in solving the positions in that book and would you believe what lies on the 33rd page of the book?

Do I need to say anything more!

I would like to thank authors like Mark Dvoretsky and Jacob Aagaard who are doing a phenomenal job of publishing high quality books that is helping to bridge the gap between us and these elite 2700+ GMs.

For more information about this talented young Indian GM, do read the interview that I had with him around nine months ago.

I will surely ask Ankit as to where he picked up this Ng8 idea from, but as of now I can only wish him the best for the future rounds at the super strong Qatar Open! May he produce more such brilliancies!

Addendum, for players below the Elo of 2200, I would heartily recommend "Can you be a positional chess genius?" written by Angus Dunnington.

Ankit's picture taken by Amruta Mokal

Carlsen-Anand World Championship 2014 Game 11 (Carlsen wins)

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

My duels with Vishy Anand

How many chess players in the world can boast of having played against the World Champion? I am sure not many! I am among those lucky few who not only got a chance to play a World Champion once but twice! And no marks for guessing who this World Champion was....

India's very own, five-time World Champion, Vishwanathan Anand

The first time I played with Vishy Anand was way back in 2005, 23rd June 2005 to be precise. I was in 10th grade (15 years old) and was participating in an inter-school tournament. The top 10 winners from 2 categories (20 in all) would play in a simultaneous display against Vishy. I scored 5.5/6 in the tournament and finished joint winner along with Meghan Gupte. It meant that I had qualified to play against the World Champion. In 2005, Anand was not yet the undisputed World Champion. It was only in 2008 when he beat Kramnik that he achieved that. Yet he had won the World Championship title in 2000 in Tehran when he beat Alexei Shirov in the final of the knock out event. So he already was a World Champion when I played him.

Playing against 20 talented kids is a tough task for anyone but not if you are Vishy Anand!

Anand beat his opponent's one after the other at a breathtaking pace. There I am trying to stand up in the background.

In 2005, I was rated 2037. We were given the option of whether we wanted to play with the white or black pieces. I really wanted to play black because I was very well versed with the Dragon variation back then!(At least that's what I thought) But then what if Anand would play 1.d4!?? I quickly turned the board around and took the white pieces.

The game began as a Slav and after seven moves I was already out of theory. Not a good sign when you are playing a 2785 player famed for his opening preparation. Even though it was a simul, Anand did not miss a single tactic against me and with a flurry of nice combinative blows he won a pawn. Rest was just matter of technique for the great champion as he exchanged all the pieces and converted the extra pawn in an instructive rook endgame. 

Naturally I was dejected at having blown away this wonderful opportunity of playing a good game against Anand. But there was some consolation. My game lasted for nearly 49 moves while many others got mated in some 20 odd moves! So people applauded me for playing so long against such a great player. While that comforted me a little, deep within I knew Vishy didn't have to stretch even one bit to beat me that day!

Here's the game:

My priced possession! The 2005 score sheet which thankfully I have preserved

Vishy's signature: A wonderful memorabilia for any chess player!

Receiving the first prize

Vishy had a tough time against two players out of the 20. One was Kaushal Shukla, the boy against whom Anand is making his move and Aditya Udeshi who is now an IM, the little kid in the red shirt.

(Both the games can be played through towards the end of the article) 

Kaushal Shukla who was rated around 1950 had a mating attack and was about to win in around 12 moves but missed his opportunity! Right now I am wondering what a blow it would have been to Vishy if he had lost the first game itself. But nothing of that sort happened and Vishy won all the 20 games! What was absolutely fascinating was how after every kid resigned, Anand would set up the position and tell his opponent where they had gone wrong! What phenomenal memory!

Concentration personified!

So my first duel against Vishy Anand ended in a convincing win for the champion and I was waiting for the day when I would get a chance to play him again. I had to wait for exactly five years before the golden opportunity dawned once again! 

On 19th of June 2010, there was an inter collegiate knock out tournament held at the National College, Bandra. The tournament was not at all strong and I had to just win two rounds to get a chance to play with Vishy once again! This time I was a better player. My rating had improved from 2037 to 2265 and I understood more about chess in general. On the other hand, Vishy's list of achievements since we last met were just mind boggling. Not only had he won the FIDE World Championship tournament in Mexico in 2007, he had also beaten Vladimir Kramnik in one to one match in 2008 and Veselin Topalov in 2010. Vishy had beaten Topalov just a month before he came to play this simul. Wow! I was going to play the strongest player on the planet at that point of time!

Shaking hands with the undisputed World Champion before the start of the game

This time I had the black pieces and Anand opened with 1.d4, the same move with which he had opened his games against Topalov. I knew I was in for some heavy duty prepared lines by the World Champion but I decided to go for it and played the Queen's Indian. The game was extremely interesting as it soon took the character of a Grunfeld Defense. I sacrificed the exchange and had excellent compensation for it but soon I started playing with complete lack of confidence. Within few moves, Anand consolidated his advantage. There was still some technical work left to be done when the games had to be ended due to time constraints. I am sure Vishy would have beaten me from that position but you never know. Even the best can blunder sometimes! 

Here is the 2010 game. I had annotated the game on the day it was played and as I publish it here, I decided to leave the youthful annotations as they were!

After the game i asked Anand whether the exchange sacrifice was good. He said,"yes, it was very interesting but why didn't you take the pawn on a3?" How in the world was i to say that it was out of sheer respect for you!

Humility and modesty are two of  Anand's biggest traits. He didn't tell me that he was winning here. He just said that he has a small advantage! Of course he knew that the advantage was huge and almost decisive but that's the way a great World Champion is made!

A huge crowd had gathered to watch the games

This time I did make Vishy sweat a little more than the game in 2005!

It was a great pleasure and honour to play against Vishwanathan Anand on both the occasions. Seeing such a legend in action and playing against him can really help your chess career in a big way. These two games are something that I will cherish forever. Vishwanathan Anand is an inspiration for every Indian chess player and I wish him the best for his 11th and 12th game against Magnus Carlsen in Sochi! Hope he wins once again and I can get a chance to play with the World Champion for the third time, maybe one on one! :)

Addendum:

Aditya Udeshi was 12 years old when played with Vishy in 2005. He was kind enough to send his game against Vishy with annotations that he had done back then. Learn how to get a winning position against the World Champion:

Cute little boy off the board but a terror on it! That's Aditya for you!

While Aditya's loss was sad, you must definitely have a look at the next game. My friend Kaushal Shukla had Anand on the mat to such an extent that it was simply impossible to wriggle out of it! But Vishy managed to do that though not before Kaushal had botched his chance to checkmate his esteemed opponent!

The boy who was so close to beating Anand- Kaushal Shukla!

Meghan Gupte who won the tournament along with me!

My favourite picture from 2010. Hansal Pandya who is a deaf and mute had the best 10 seconds of his life holding the hand of Vishy Anand!

When Vishy met Vishy! Vishvesh Kochrekar receives the prize from Anand.

A huge thanks to Kaushal Shukla who provided me with all the pictures of 2005

Carlsen-Anand World Championship 2014- Game 10 (draw)

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

Carlsen- Anand World Championship 2014 Game 9 (draw)

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

Some of the tweets of from round 9 that i liked:

Time to go to sleep again #CarlsenAnand its another Berlin, did I say I yawned? Phew, get ready for another long grind! #BoringLife
— Vishal Sareen (@vishalsareen) November 20, 2014

Draw today if Carlsen will not overpush. #CarlsenAnand
— Teymur Rajabov (@rajachess) November 20, 2014

Expected #CarlsenAnand
— Teymur Rajabov (@rajachess) November 20, 2014

Today's result is slightly in Vishy's favour. 3 games is enough to level the score but it is now time to sharpen the struggle #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 20, 2014

Today's game is good news for Anand fans I think. Magnus is clearly trying to close out the match, so Vishy has 3 more chances #CarlsenAnand
— Jonathan Rowson (@Jonathan_Rowson) November 20, 2014

Acceptable result for Magnus and good result for Anand. Disappointing day for chess fans. #CarlsenAnand
— Harikrishna (@HariChess) November 20, 2014

When I become @Fide_chess President, the first thing I will do is ban the Berlin #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 21, 2014

Berlin aside, I also learned that this is a dangerous path. Giving up quick draws with white is a betrayal of Kaissa & she does not like it!
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) November 20, 2014

My write up on facebook:

Post by Sagar Shah.

Carlsen-Anand World Championship Match- Game 8 (draw)

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

Some of the tweets from round 8 that I liked:

9...Re8 is rather an unusual move. I don't know it, despite 30+ years experience in this variation #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 18, 2014

10.Bg5 is the most dynamic approach. This was also played by Lalith on 2013! #CarlsenAnand
— Surya Sekhar Ganguly (@suryachess64) November 18, 2014

Surprised Carlsen is playing such a risky variation.No doubt he analysed it,but it's hard to account for all White's options.#CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 18, 2014

Magnus is trying to vary, every game,does not want anything forced and prepared by Anand. Wants to play practical chess #CarlsenAnand
— Teymur Rajabov (@rajachess) November 18, 2014

Looks like surprise value is the main element of Carlsen's preparation with black after his loss in game 3. #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 18, 2014

Team Carlsen had 3 days to prepare for this black game, seems they used it well! Likely the game will end peacefully soon. #CarlsenAnand
— Erwin l'Ami (@erwinlami) November 18, 2014

World Champion has the right to sleep #CarlsenAnand
— Teymur Rajabov (@rajachess) November 18, 2014

Looks like a typical condom variation from Magnus: to be used once and thrown away #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 18, 2014

Second day in a row "Magnus" is prepared for 20+ moves. Who is this guy and what has he done to the World Champion? #CarlsenAnand
— Jan Gustafsson (@GMJanGustafsson) November 18, 2014

At least with his rook on e8, Black won't be mated by Qh7 now #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 18, 2014

instead of 15.0-0, white could have played Ba2 idea Bb1 posing serious problems for black?
— Ramesh RB (@Rameshchess) November 18, 2014

If Vishy doesn't exploit his development over the next 5 moves, he is unlikely to get an advanatge at all #CarlsenAnand #balancedstructure
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 18, 2014

Good preparation today by team Magnus, so a well deserved dull draw. The finishing line of the match is near! #exciting #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 18, 2014

#CarlsenAnand Dont agree it was good preparation by Carlsen. It was bluff which worked in this game. Guess he wont repeat it again.
— Ramesh RB (@Rameshchess) November 18, 2014

Alas, I may not have any time to comment on the remaining games #CarlsenAnand . Thanks to all those who have followed me. It's been fun.
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 19, 2014

My write up on facebook:

Post by Sagar Shah.

Carlsen-Anand World Championship 2014 - Game 7 (draw)

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

Some of the tweets that I liked from game seven:

Yay, the Berlin Endgame!!! #exciting #not #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 17, 2014

Magnus is playing safe and solid - slight edge and a bit of suffering for black, but usually this ends in a draw. #CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 17, 2014

Magnus knows who is the man to follow in the Berlin. :) Giri-Radjabov #modest #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 17, 2014

When do you expect the game to deviate from Giri - Radjabov GP 2014? @anishgiri @nigelshortchess #CarlsenAnand
— Surya Sekhar Ganguly (@suryachess64) November 17, 2014

@suryachess64 @nigelshortchess Would you like me to publish my full analysis on Twitter?:P I didn't retire just yet! #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 17, 2014

@anishgiri @suryachess64 Just e-mail me your analysis. I will buy you a (Norwegian) drink next time :)
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 17, 2014

Carlsen: "I don’t follow trends set by Giri and Radjabov in general" :) #CarlsenAnand
— chess24.com (@chess24com) November 17, 2014

Highly instructive endgame! Today everyone understands the value of commentary. Best ex why engines can't be trusted blindly #CarlsenAnand
— Harika Dronavalli (@HarikaDronavali) November 17, 2014

Anand is exceptionally good with fortress. I believe this wont go wrong and the wall will not be broken! #CarlsenAnand
— Surya Sekhar Ganguly (@suryachess64) November 17, 2014

Seems like people are overestimating White's chances. The ending looks pretty drawish to me. #CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 17, 2014

My esteemed colleague @FabianoCaruana was very sanguine about Black's chances of holding, but he is not 44 stressed and tired #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 17, 2014

70...bxc4! played. Hats off to Vishy, a very tough move to even consider for a human. #CarlsenAnand #wellplayed #draw
— Jan Gustafsson (@GMJanGustafsson) November 17, 2014

Psychologically the secret to successful defence here is to pretend you are enjoying it."Oh yes, whip me more, please!" #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 17, 2014

Looks like a draw to me now. Probably it always was one. @vishy64theking - king of fortresses. #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 17, 2014

Nowaydays when RNvsR appears in elite-events, and commentators say draw, one guy will point out 'Hold on, Carlsen won this once against...'
— Erwin l'Ami (@erwinlami) November 17, 2014

In a twisted way, this game might actually inspire Anand and give him some wings!? #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 17, 2014

Amazing practical defense today @vishy64theking Commentators deserve rest day! #CarlsenAnand
— Harikrishna (@HariChess) November 17, 2014

Brilliant defence by @vishy64theking The king of fortress! Wish him all the best for tomorrow's game.Time to hit back. #CarlsenAnand
— Surya Sekhar Ganguly (@suryachess64) November 17, 2014

My write up on facebook:

Post by Sagar Shah.

Carlsen- Anand World Championship 2014 Game 6 (Carlsen wins)

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

Some tweets that I liked from game 6.

Kan this really be such a great choice for Vishy? :) #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 15, 2014

The Kan! Big surprise (at least for me). #CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 15, 2014

Vishy plays Kan without Caro, as far as I know, for the 1st time. It's a favourite choice of mature players; solid & flexible. #CarlsenAnand
— Jonathan Rowson (@Jonathan_Rowson) November 15, 2014

Wow, Vishy goes for the Kan variation? That's known to be a good choice in open tournaments against patzers. :) #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 15, 2014

So Qd3 has apparently been played by Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Leko and...Anand #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 15, 2014

Anands opening choice is surprising. if it is not worked out until draw,it is unpleasant position to play against Magnus #CarlsenAnand
— Harikrishna (@HariChess) November 15, 2014

Actually I don't like the Black position at all #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 15, 2014

Terrible choice by Anand today. Just worse,being worse on Saturday all day long is unpleasant,bad week-end choice #CarlsenAnand
— Teymur Rajabov (@rajachess) November 15, 2014

Passive and unpleasant position for Anand - something went very wrong. Now we can settle down for a long grind. #CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 15, 2014

The Berlin looks much more hopeful and double edged that this. #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 15, 2014

There's something monstrously efficient about Magnus's move-order; he extracts 100% of the power from his available pieces. #CarlsenAnand
— Jonathan Rowson (@Jonathan_Rowson) November 15, 2014

Wow 26...Ne5! and black is winning....Anand plays 26...a4? Whats going on :) #CarlsenAnand
— Harikrishna (@HariChess) November 15, 2014

Magnus got away with a huge error. Almost as bad as dropping Rohit Sharma when he was on 4 runs #CarlsenAnand
— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) November 15, 2014

Impressed by yesterday's blitz,both players blundered,Nxe5. Nothing special. Happens,Anand will regret it for many months. #carlsenanand
— Teymur Rajabov (@rajachess) November 15, 2014

Shocking blunders... Vishy won't be able to sleep tonight. #CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 15, 2014

I hope now Anand does not notice 26...Ne5! until the game ends! #CarlsenAnand
— Harikrishna (@HariChess) November 15, 2014

I imagine they're both horrified with how they played today, but Magnus can console himself with a point closer to the title. #CarlsenAnand
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) November 15, 2014

Today's is surely a candidate for "worst WCh blunder ever" because of giant eval flip. From huge advantage to probably losing in one move.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) November 15, 2014

Historical game! #CarlsenAnand
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) November 15, 2014

My write up for facebook

Post by Sagar Shah.

Carlsen-Anand World Championship 2014 Game five

Analysis by IM Sagar Shah

My write up for Facebook

Post by Sagar Shah.

Here are three videos that I made when the game was in progress.

Rest day! (in Mumbai!)

Game number three turned out to be a wonderful day for chess fans all over the world and especially India. Vishy Anand beat Magnus Carlsen after a gap of almost four years. Next day in Game four we witnessed a Sicilian and though it was a slow manoeuvring game, it was quite a tense struggle. And after every two games comes the rest day! While the players need it, what should the chess fans all around the world do? There are no pictures of the players because they are too busy in the match to update their facebook or twitter accounts. The lone picture of Magnus Carlsen that I found after game four was the following.

Says the caption: A good way to end game day 4: Enjoying a few good laughs and some good Georgian food with my team. (picture from facebook page of Magnus Carlsen)

For me, the match is also pretty tiring. After watching the game intensely for nearly 5-6 hours I would get down to the work on annotating the games in detail for the android application.(If you are a chess lover and have a android mobile/tablet and you do not have this app, it is high time you download it!) So after four games, it became quite necessary for me to unwind. And what better way than to explore the beautiful city that I live in: the city of Mumbai! 

I understand that the readers are not at all interested in what I did on the rest day :), but the catch here is that in the process of knowing what I did, you will be able to see beautiful pictures of the city of Mumbai!

The best way to travel in Mumbai is through local trains

The population of Mumbai is around 20 million! Such scenes are not uncommon!

Beauty always awaits at the end of the tough journey! The beautiful Marine Drive.

There are only a few things in life that I love more than Pizza. Chess is definitely one of them! The restaurant that we ate this is known as 'Pizza by the bay'. It serves one of best pizzas in Mumbai.

After lunch, we decided to go to this little shop and eat 'Paan'. 

Paan known as Betel leaf is extremely good for digestion. A lot of things are added on the paan which make it simply delicious! It has to be folded and then eaten in one go! If you are in Mumbai, you must try this after your meal.

My wife, Amruta, definitely recommends it! :)

Buying new books is always on the agenda for me! But I saw something very interesting at the Oxford book store. There was a man (in the picture above) who was sitting all alone with three things. One book in which he had carefully written the moves of the Staunton Gambit (d4 f5 e4), a mobile phone in which he was peiodically seeing a game, and a tablet in which he was analyzing. Such was his concentration that he never once looked at me or anyone around him! I did not want to disturb this man and hence just observed him. To tell you the truth he did inspire me with his unflinching dedication towards the game!

Shopping time! The variety of things available at the Colaba market was simply mind boggling! Guess what Amruta, the chess player bought for herself!

Not the My System! but a pocket watch which had a king engraved on it!

The Gateway of India looks very pretty at night

The colours of Indian flag gave the structure a very nice effect. A small historical note: The structure was erected to commemorate the landing of their Majesties King George V and Queen Mary at Apollo Bunder, when they visited India in 1911. (from Wikipidea)

These colourful horse rides, also known as Victoria ride is a must if you are near the Gateway of India

Near the Gateway, is the majestic Taj hotel

Dinner time: The "Bhatura" is a huge 'puri' made of Maida flour which is to be eaten with..

Chole: Spicy chick peas

Final stop: The Chowpatty beach and in the background you can see the array of lights which is also known as the Queen's necklace! 

Happy and refreshed after Mumbai Darshan!

Game number five is going to be one of the most crucial encounters in the match. While Vishy will most probably begin the game with 1.d4, Magnus's reply is not at all obvious. There are so many options available for him, but I would like to put my money on the Ragozin Defense (d4 Nf6 c4 e6 Nf3 d5 Nc3 Bb4). Catch the game live at 17.30 hours on the official website.

Though there is no replacement for the action from Sochi, I hope you enjoyed this little tour of Mumbai! (picture from the official website)