CHESS #605

The Kolkata Open at the Alekhine Chess Club attracted global publicity for rather dubious reasons. In Round Three, French Champion GM Vladislav Tkachiev (a former Kazakh citizen of Russian origin and a noted bon vivant) arrived inebriated for his game against Pravin Kumar and sank into a stupor after 11 moves.

After attempts to rouse him failed, Tkachiev was forfeited for failing to make the time control. Quite apart from entertainment value, some debate was generated regarding the legality of trying to rouse him at all. Although Tkachiev could have been evicted from the tournament, he was allowed to continue.

However, his spirited (non-) performance did little to detract from the quality of play in what is perhaps the strongest open ever held in Asia. There were many upsets with the three top seeds Shakhriyar Mamedaryov, Nigel Short and Ni Hua all suffering defeats.

Teenaged Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem, who is under-rated at his current 2602, displayed fine temperament and form to bag the Peerless Trophy and Rs 3 lakh with an impressive tally of 8 points from 10 games.

Liem was followed by Shakhriyar Mamedaryov and Anton Fillipov who tied for 2-3 on 7.5. A multiple tie on 4-9 saw Short, and the home-duo of Suryasekhar Ganguly and Sandipan Chanda landing on 7 along with Viktor Laznicka, Swayanshu Satyapragyan, and Aleksej Aleksandrov.

There were 3 GM norms and 10 IM norms scored. R.R. Laxman made his final norm and became India’s 20th GM. IM Satyapragyan and the untitled, 13-year-old Sahej Grover made maiden GM norms. The IM-norms came from Abhishek Das, Anwesh Upadhyay, B S Shivananda, Shyam Nikhil, Akshat Khamparia, Ankit Rajpara,Vidit Gujrathi, Sayantan Das, Nisha Mohota and Shiven Khosla.

The Bilbao Grand Slam got underway with Karjakin, Grischuk, Shirov and Aronyan squaring off in a double-Round Robin. Bilbao uses the unusual 3 for a win and 1 for a draw scoring and Sofia rules. After 3 rounds, there's been just one draw. Aronyan and Grischuk share the lead with 2 wins, 1 loss each.

THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Mamedaryov Vs Gagunashvili , Kolkata Open 2009) was the launch pad for an sacrificial orgy. White played 15. Qc2! gxh4 16. Bxh7+ Kh8 17. Qf5! Bh6 18. Nh4 Bg5 19. Ng6+ Kg7 20. dxe5 Nxe5 21. Nxe5 fxe5 22. Qg6+ Kh8 23. Qh5! Qd2. A tougher line may be 23. -Qd6 24. Bg6+ Kg7 25. Qh7+ Kf6 26 Bh5 Bd2 27. Rad1 but white is obviously winning.

The game concluded 24. Be4+ Bh6 25. Qg6 Qxf2+ 26. Kh1 Qf7 - 27. Qxh6+ Kg8 28. Re3 (1-0). White has to appreciate that his grip on the light squares is so total that he can coolly improve his piece coordination with quiet moves like Qf5-h5.