Chess (1173)

Wesley So won the Bilbao Premier scoring 1.5-0.5 against Anish Giri in a tiebreak. The four player double round-robin produced somewhat strange results or rather, lack of results. There were just two decisive classical games despite Sofia Rules. So beat Ding Liren and Giri beat VIswanathan Anand.

While So-Liren was a thriller with extremely unusual material balance (three minors Vs queen). Giri won very easily after Anand missed a trick early in a difficult opening. The Indian GM said it was probably the worst game he had ever played in his life. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration but it's certainly unusual to see the world #3 lost after 11 moves.

But after that success Giri could not consolidate even though he held an apparent edge in the tie-break games. To top the weirdness of the Round-robin stage, Giri lost the decisive tiebreak game to So despite being a clear pawn ahead in a standard rook plus minor piece endgame.

Meanwhile, the Indian contingent delivered a bagful of medals at the World Youth Championships, Porto Carras, Greece. When the dust settled, the Indians had five golds, three silvers and three bronzes. No other national team took more than one gold. Seven of the medals went to the girls.

The gold medallists included M Mahalakshmi (Girls Under-18), R Vaishali (Girls U-14), Praggnanandhaa R (Open U-10), Rakshitta Ravi (Girls U-10), Bharath Subramaniyam (Open U-8). The silvers went to V Varshini (Girls U-18), Nihal Sarin (Open U-12) and Dev Shah (Open U-8). The bronzes went to Vantika Agarwal (Girls U-14), Saina Salonika (Girls U-12) and Divya Deshmukh (Girls U-10).

Incidentally, all five gold medallists are Chennai-based and also pupils of GM R B Ramesh, which is truly extraordinary and a tribute to Ramesh's ability to find and nurture talent. Chennai has always been a hotspot. But Ramesh's academy, Chess Gurukul, has now pulled off a feat that's probably unmatched even by the great Soviet and Russian schools.

The DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (White: Giri VS Black: Anand, Bilbao 2015) features a simple combination that leaves white a little better 9.Nxe5 dxe5 10.Bxe4 So far so good. Now a correspondence game continued 10.--Nd7 and 10. -- Re8 is an engine recommendation.

Anand played 10. -- Be6?! 11.Ba3 Re8 12.Qb1 White wins material. The best defense may be 12. -- Nd7 13. Bxh7+ Kh8 because 12. -- h6 13. Qxb7 Nd7 14. Bxc6 loses at least two pawns.

Play continued 12...Qxd2? 13.Qxb7 Nd7 14.Bxc6 Reb8 15.Qa6 Rb6 16.Qa4 Rc8 17.Rad1 Qxd1 Forced due to the hanging Nd7. 18.Rxd1 Rbxc6 19.Qxa7 R6c7 20.Qe3 Rxc4 21.Bb4 h6 22.a4 Nf6 23.Qxe5 and (1-0) in 37 moves. Anand lost on time - a rarity for him.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player