India's first chess features print magazine published quarterly from Lucknow since 2004 by Aspire Welfare Society.

India's 1st Video Chess Simul

Lucknow, August 29 2005: The reigning National Women's Chess Champion WGM Nisha Mohota of Kolkata checkmated three top Uttar Pradesh players and drew with other two in India’s First-ever Video Online Chess Game Challenge through Reliance WebWorld between Lucknow and Kolkata.



In a two-hour-long nail-biting finish, Nisha drew the unique game with Arif Ali and Pawan Batham while she defeated KN Mehta, Suman Mehra and Yogesh Gupta, all top-ranking chess players from Uttar Pradesh.

But it was 89-year-old KN Mehta who stole the show. Mehta fought the women Grandmater till last. “He was doing well but he blundered under pressure at the last moment,” said Mr Junaid Ahmad, the National Arbiter who conducted the video online chess challenge. The Reliance WebWorld and Black & White Chess Magazine (India's only chess features magazine) organised this unique event killing the distance in a flick of a switch.

Terming it as the most fantastic experience in chess, the National Grandmaster Nisha Mohota commented: “I wish Black & White Chess Magazine and chess grow together and organise many more such events in future to promote chess in India.”



This experiment adds a new dimension to online gaming in the country. Chess players play almost a real-life situation in a three-dimensional format. Two-dimensional game, when played on computer screen through internet, is often seen by many Chess players as a bit of handicap. Also, chess is a lot about psychology. It's about the body language of your opponent. Chess players usually follow the eyes of their opponent over the board to pick clues about which section of the game the opponent is focusing on.

In the video-conferencing virtual experience at the Reliance WebWorld, notwithstanding hundreds of kilometers separating opponents, the excitement and tension of a live chess tournament was recreated. The camera zoomed in on to the board and the particular player to make it appear as if the opponents were sitting right opposite each other.

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