Grand Prix events at Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club!

by Aanchal Dhakar - 29/11/2025

Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club in Mumbai now hosts a year-long Grand Prix series, where the regular 4th Saturday monthly blitz tournaments, now award GP points to the top 10 finishers. After 11 cycles, the top 12 compete in a March 2026 Grand Prix Finale featuring higher cash rewards and a grand prize for the winner. The player with the highest total points is crowned Player of 2025-26, celebrating their consistency and strength in the club’s most competitive season yet. We are already six months into the Grand Prix events and have a leaderboard coming up! Read more about this and how you can be a part of it in this article. Photos: ChessBase India

Monthly Tournaments at the Club

Since its inception in March 2022, the Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club has proudly hosted monthly blitz tournaments on the 4th Saturday of every month, exclusively for its annual club members, with a prize fund of ₹10,000. These exciting events have steadily grown in popularity and competitive spirit within our community as we have hosted close to 35 editions already!

Format

Blitz Time Control: 5+2
Entry Fee: FREE (all you need is a valid annual club membership that costs 100 INR, and you are eligible to participate in all our 4th Saturday events)

Spots: 90 to 100 (depending on the table arrangements made for that week)

Registration: A Circlechess registration link is sent to our club members via email, which helps them register for the tournaments

Prizes

Cash Prizes and trophies for the top 3 winners and some vouchers and gifts to the players ranked 4th to 8th from our online shop!

Exciting Prizes for the winners of the monthly tournaments

Signature trophies for the top 3 winners of our monthly tournaments.

The Grand Prix Twist

Inspired by Freestyle Chess, Sagar bhai suggested adding a twist to our monthly tournaments for the year 2025-26!

The idea was to include the existing monthly tournaments in an annual Grand Prix cycle, where the top 10 players from each month receive certain GP points and the top 12 at the end of 11 events, play the finale leg for double points and an exciting grand prize (to be announced)

Building on this momentum, we announced the Grand Prix events in April, for the April 2025 to March 2026 cycle!

This new format brings a fresh competitive edge, rewarding consistent performance across multiple events.

The monthly Grand Prix format and points system in a gist

Sagar Shah, the man behind the Grand Prix events at Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club

Who Can Participate?

Anyone who is an annual member of our Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club, with a club membership valid in the current FY (up to 31st March 2026)

Anyone in/around Mumbai can become our member, register for our monthly tournament through its link (sent via email), and play these tournaments hosted on 4th Saturdays! We still have 5 months to go and who knows if you end up being in the top 3 of these events, you could be a strong contender for the final leg in March

The Leaderboard

RANK	PLAYER NAME	FIDE ID	APR PTS	MAY PTS	JUN PTS	JUL PTS	AUG PTS	SEPT PTS	OCT PTS	NOV PTS	DEC PTS	JAN PTS	FEB PTS	TOTAL
2025-26 PHOENIX CHESSBASE INDIA CHESS CLUB GRAND PRIX LEADERBOARD
1	Shah Mihir	46628878	12	25	25	25	25	12	4	25				153
2	Potawad Anirudhha	45081506		18				18	25	18				79
3	Iyer Arvind	45092613	25	15				6		8				54
4	Guru Prakash	25138316	4			15	18		15	1				53
5	FM Nagarkatte Vedant	25636227			18			25						43
6	Somaiya Shreyansh	25774310	15	2		4	15			6				42
7	Dere Pushkar	25040898		12	10		10	8						40
8	Kherdekar Arnav	46646345	18		2	18								38
9	Shah Jeet	45012954			15			1		15				31
10	Rachit H Gurnani	25613065				8			12	10				30
11	Boricha Yohan	46672923					12	10						22
12	Chandar Raju	25008307			4				18					22
13	Gada Om	25692755				1	8			12				21
14	Shah Veer Kunjan	25671081		8		10	2							20
15	Naik Mihir	33436649	6			6	6		1					19
16	Shreyas Ghadi	35062409						15						15
17	Ankur Mahesh Gokhale	25033352				12								12
18	Gogte Soumil	45092567		10		2								12
19	Shubham Rahul Kamble	25121421			12									12
20	Prabhu Arjun	33436665			1				10					11
21	Ram Vishal Parab	25774166		6			4							10
22	Neeraj Singh		10											10
23	Majumder Shrayan	45040419			8									8
24	Malvankar Vikrant	25011634	8											8
25	Aniket Kashinath Bawaskar	46619615							8					8
26	Pandey Vihan	48768626			6									6
27	Vansh Thakker								6					6
28	IM Sagar Shah	5022509		1				4						5
29	Dharia Vishal	45076162		4										4
30	Badoni Nitin									4				4
31	Patil Ketan	5035040							2					2
32	Siddharth Venkatesh	5036763	2											2
33	Gopal Rathod	5018811						2						2
34	Juneja Madanlal									2				2
35	Jagesia Daksh	25670956					1							1
36	Shubhankar Das	45079579	1											1

Mihir Shah has been leading the Grand Prix leaderboard with close to 3x more points than the second place until September 2025

The Finale Leg

The top 12 players on the leaderboard by the end of February 2026 will qualify for the Grand Prix Finale scheduled for March 2026. This finale promises to be the highlight of the chess club year with:

A larger cash prize pool.
A grand prize for the overall Grand Prix winner.

The winner doesn't just get decided by the first rank. We have a twist!

Based on final rankings, each player gets GP points which gets added to their previous score to decide the winners!

Finale points would be awarded as follows:

1st place: 50 points

2nd place: 36 points

3rd place: 30 points

4th place: 24 points

5th place: 20 points

6th place: 16 points

7th place: 12 points

8th place: 8 points

9th place: 4 points

10th place: 2 points

The player with the highest total GP points, including the finale will be crowned the Player of 2025-26 at Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club.

Monthly Tournament Standings

April 2025 Tournament

May 2025 Tournament

June 2025 Tournament

July 2025 Tournament

August 2025 Tournament

September 2025 Tournament

We encourage all are club members to participate in our monthly event to maximize their chances on the leaderboard. The Grand Prix structure rewards not only individual victories but consistent excellence, pushing everyone to bring their best every month.

Stay tuned for updates on this article for leaderboard standings as we continue this exciting journey together!