The Commonwealth Championship was held 19th November to 30 November in Mumbai, India. The venue was around 45 mintues north of the airport which itself is 1 hour north of Mumbai CBD. Mumbai is a very large bustling city and travelling around on the street was difficult to say the least. There were 170 players of which 155 were from India. The others were from Sri Lanka (4) Bangladesh (2) South Africa (2) Nigeria (2) Pakistan (1) Namibia (1) England (1) Malaysia (1) Australia (1). Ten of the non-Indian players were accomodated a short walk from the venue. The other players were slightly farther away.

Lee Jones at Mumbai

I started badly with 0/2. I got back to 4/7 but then finished dismally with 4/10.

The highlight for me was beating IM Laxman from India. He was confident of winning but overstretched allowing me to win. I had no excuse for the other results as the food was excellent (I didn't get the infamous Delhi belly as experienced by many touring Australian cricketers!)

GM Nigel Short from England (Rated 2677) won the tournament with 9/10.

After the game each day, many of the overseas visitors met up for dinner. Speaking to Nigel he was very pleased with his game against Gupta. As he mentioned at dinner afterwards, he needed to prepare an opening in the morning to take his well-versed opponent out of the book (India has alot of corporate money flooding into Chess and all of the Indian players are well coached and well versed in opening theory!).

Hence, he wheeled out the Evans Gambit as discovered by Captain William Davies Evans! Click here for more information about the Evans Gambit.

To play through the game with Chess Genie click here.

Here's the text of the game. You can cut and paste it into your chess program.
Short,Nigel (2677) - Gupta,Abhijeet (2481) [C52] Commonwealth Chess Championship (5.1), 24.11.2006 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 exd4 7.Qb3 Qf6 8.0-0 b5 9.Bxb5 Nge7 10.Bg5 Qg6 11.Bxe7 Nxe7 12.cxd4 0-0 13.Na3 Rb8 14.Qa4 Bc3 15.Rac1 Bb2 16.Rxc7 Qd6 17.Rxc8 Nxc8 18.Nc4 Qc7 19.Nxb2 Nd6 20.Bxd7 Rxb2 21.Bc6 Rfb8 22.a3 Rb1 23.g3 h6 24.e5 Nf5 25.Be4 Rxf1+ 26.Kxf1 Ne7 27.d5 Qc5 28.d6 Nd5 29.Qd4 Qb5+ 30.Kg2 Nb6 31.Ne1 Qa5 32.Nd3 Qxa3 33.Nc5 Rc8 34.d7 Nxd7 35.Nxd7 Qc3 36.Qxa7 Qd2 37.Qb7 Rd8 38.Bc6 Qc3 39.h4 h5 40.Be4 Qd2 41.Bd5 0-1

Overall, the tournament was tough but enjoyable. Many of the Indian players were relatively young (most of them ranging from 8 to 22!). In fact, the number of players rated between 2000 and 2200 was remarkable and most of them very young (eg. 9-15 years old). As mentioned in the closing ceremony by the organisers, 'India is the powerhouse of chess' as proven in the 2006 World Youth Championships in Batumi, Armenia where India took out a record 10 medals. Click here for the results of that event.

For the official report of the event Click here.

                              —Report:   Lee Jones