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The Playfield Magazine - covering Chess the right way!

by Himank Ghosh - 26/07/2022

The Playfield is a distinguished sports magazine, produced by some of the best journalists in India. Usually, chess coverage in these sports magazines is very less. But just before the start of the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai, the Playfield has come up with coverage of the Indian chess team! Eminent sports journalists like Manisha Mohite and N. Jagannath Das have done dedicated interviews, written columns, and write-ups. How did this magazine start its journey, and what is the type of content produced? Find out in the article.

We all know that Chess still doesn't get enough recognition in mainstream media channels like newspapers and TV news channels. While there are magazines made specifically on chess like the ChessBase Magazine, New in Chess, and Chess Informant, detailed reporting of chess events/ chess player interviews on regular news channels are still pretty rare.

you can get a subscription to the ChessBase Magazine for 1 year(6 issues) here.

That's where Playfield Magazine becomes a trailblazer- a highly decorated sports magazine that covers full-length pages of interviews and chess tournament news!

The cover image of the July 20 issue of The Playfield Magazine!

Playfield Sports Magazine

The Coronavirus has been really hard for everyone. One of the groups which were affected the most was sports journalists. The playfield is a fortnightly (released every 15 days) sports magazine that was launched on 2nd January 2021 with a group of sports journalists coming together for this noble venture to raise funds for the journalist fraternity who suffered job cuts during the lockdown. The founder members of the Playfield are R Kaushik, Sukhwant Basra, Nikhil Naz, Manoj Chaturvedi, R. Ramachandran, Austin Coutinho, Purneema Narayanan, Ashwin Krishnan, and Vijay Lokapally. With so many renowned journalists working on the magazine, you can easily imagine that the quality of content will be sky-high!

Manisha Mohite, the amazing chess journalist

Manisha Mohite is the powerful pen behind many stunning chess articles and interviews. She is a very strong national chess player and has played in India's top tournaments. Later, she became one of the best chess reporters in the country, covering the exploits of star Indian players like Vishy Anand and Pentala Harikrishna. After a break from the chess grid for a few years, she made a fabulous return with a report on the National Women Challengers held in Mysuru, Karnataka in July 2017. 

One of India's best chess journalists Manisha Mohite with the Chess-loving Bollywood superstar, Aamir Khan!

Left to right: Manisha Mohite, KS Sujatha, Mayura G, and KS Shashikala. All of them have played Nationals for their country!

In the 38th issue of the Playfield Magazine released on July 20th, 2022, Manisha wrote a beautiful article on the Indian Chess Team in the upcoming Chennai Chess Olympiad.

Manisha's writeup on India as a growing Chess superpower

Time, force, and space- everything is in our favor!

The Madras Tiger Vishy Anand carries the Olympiad Torch Relay.

India's second Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua's column on the Impact of Olympiad on Indian Chess

This olympiad, it's time for the younger generation to shine!

Veteran sports Journalist N.Jagannath Das interview with India Board no.1, GM Pentala Harikrishna

This will be Harikrishna's 12th Chess Olympiad and his first one as the Board no.1 of Team India!

If you want to see more of such fantastic chess articles by eminent journalists like Manisha Mohite, Subscribe to Playfield Magazine! Here's how you can subscribe and support the sports journalist community:

Check out some of Manisha Mohite's marvelous articles in ChessBase India

Let's hear it for Aruna too! Find out the story of how Aruna Anand played a very important role in Vishy's win in the World Rapid 2017.

Circa 2009: Vishy's Best Memories. Check out the Madras Tiger's happiest moments throughout the years!

 


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