CHESS#1267

Round one of the World Cup marked the end of an era when Anand was knocked out by Kovalyov

Round one of the World Cup (WC) in Tbilisi marked the end of an era when Viswanthan Anand was knocked out by Canadian GM Anton Kovalyov. This will be the first Candidates cycle since 1991 when Anand will not be a participant. During that time, he’s won the world title five times and been the unsuccessful challenger on three occasions. 

Two other Indians are guaranteed places in the third round of the WC and there might possibly be a third. Vidit Gujrathi won his first two matches while P HariKrishna plays S P Sethuraman in a tiebreaker. Baskaran Adhiban plays Ian Nepomniachtchi in another tiebreaker where the Russian GM would be the favourite but Adhiban has a pretty good record at pulling off upsets. Sethuraman pulled off one of the bigger upsets of round one when he beat Ukrainian star Ruslan Ponomariov. Murali Karthikeyan went down to Francisco Paco Vallejo after a hard fought tie-breaker in round one and Deep Sengupta lost to Chinese super GM, Wang Hao.  

Kovalyov, who was born in 1992, after Anand became a top ten player, benefited when the 47-year-old Anand made a speculative piece sacrifice in game 1 of his mini-match. Kovalyov kept finding the best defence and finally realised the material edge. The former world champion couldn’t come back, drawing game 2 when he had to win. Harikrishna was in a similar situation in his first round match versus Yuri Vidal Gonzalez and he did win and pull through in a tiebreaker. Adhiban also won a hard-fought tiebreak versus Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. 

Vidit has won both his matches, versus Neuris Delgado Ramirez and Le Quang Liem without recourse to tiebreaks. World champion Magnus Carlsen has also sailed through his first two matches. However, the last challenger and defending champion, Sergey Karjakin was upset by his compatriot, Daniil Dubov. Karjakin has a spot in the Candidates regardless, by virtue of playing the last title match. 

As always, the World Cup throws up a multitude of interesting games with a mix of good play and huge blunders caused by time pressure and nerves. The diagram is from White: Nguyen Vs Black : Adhiban, Rd 1, game 3 (Rapid), World Cup Tbilisi 2017). 

BLACK TO PLAY. Adhiban played  27. — Rd1! 28. Bg2 Ng4+ 29. Kf3 Rd3+ 30. Kf4 f6! Not too hard to calculate and 30.— h6 also wins with similar variations. It’s tough to imagine a mate in the diagrammed position with so few pieces left. White should, of course, play 26. Nf4 Nxf1 giving up the piece though that will also lose.
 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player