CHESS#1299

The Sharjah Open ended in victory for the teenaged Iranian GM Parham Maghsoodloo who blasted out an incredible 8 points from 9 games. He was trailed by Wang Hao and Eltaj Safarli (both 7) who shared second-third. Sethuraman, Vlad Artemiev, Adhiban, were among the pack of 11 players who shared 4th-14th. 

Meanwhile R Praggnanandhaa won the Fischer Memorial at Heraklion, Greece, to score his second GM norm. The 12-year-old scored 7 from 9 games to place first in a 10 player Round Robin. He needs one more and it’s likely to come quickly now that the pressure of targeting a record is no longer stifling him.

The Bangkok Open, which is in play, has IM Novendra Priasmoro (6.5) in the lead after seven rounds. He's followed by a host of GMs including Deepan Chakraborty. There was a noteworthy incident involving another Indian prodigy. D Gukesh was in a dead-lost position against Nigel Short when the English GM forgot to press his clock and lost on time. Short was angry with himself and also with Gukesh for celebrating a perfectly legal but somewhat sour win. Gukesh shares 4th-14th (all of 5.5) and Short is also part of that pack.

The US Championships has also started. This is an uneven tournament with three Super GMs, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura, the leading seeds in a 12-player Round Robin with a prize fund of nearly $200,000. So leads with 2 from 2 games while Caruana has 1.5. There are two homegrown US prodigies to watch out for, in Awonder Liang and Jeffery Xiong. It would be interesting to see if Caruana can crack a third win in a row after the Candidates and Grenke.

The Gashimov Memorial at the Shamkir Super GM is also underway. The 10-player field is considerably stronger than the US Championships but the prize fund is only about $100,000 though there are generous appearance fees. All five games were drawn in round one.

Magnus Carlsen is the top seed, with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Sergey Karjakin, Veselin Topalov, Rauf Mamedov, David Navara, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Teimour Radjabov. Magnus Carlsen has something to prove. But so does local hero, Shakh, and there are no weaklings in this field.

The DIAGRAM, BLACK TO PLAY, (White: Kryvoruchko Vs Black: Adhiban, Sharjah Masters 2018) is from a spectacular miniature. Black Played 14. — Bd4 15. Nxd4 Nxd4 16. Kh1 .. [Forced to defend against black's next move] 

Black continued 16. — Qg5 17. Rg1 e5 [Now 18. Bxd4 exd4 19. Bf1 may limit the damage.] 18. cxd5 Rf6! 19. Bf1 Rh6 [the threat is Rxh2, Qh4#] 20. h3 Nde2 21. Qb3 Black to play and win 21. — Bxh3! (0-1).  

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player