Chess (#1220)
 "Chess (#1220)")
The October rating lists feature two Indians in the top ten in both categories. Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika have been there for a while in the women's list and Viswanathan Anand has been a permanent resident in the Open list since the early 1990s.
Pentala Harikrishna is the new entrant to top ten territory. He had a sterling Olympiad, scoring unbeaten 5.5 points from 9 games against opposition rated at an average 2751, for Elo performance of 2831. After the Olympiad, Harikrishna has scored 2.5/3 in the Spanish league.
Anand started the Tal Memorial in miserable fashion, suffering two losses and playing seven draws in the blitz precursor. The blitz tournament was used to decide pairing numbers. In a 10-person round-robin, everybody gets uneven colour split with nine games each. The top five in the Blitz tourney get five whites -significant given white's 55-45 lead in scores. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov ran away with the blitz event, scoring 7.5/9 with Levon Aronian (5.5) second. Peter Svidler, Anish Giri and Ian Nepomniachtchi (5) took the other three white slots.
The pecking order has not been the same in the tournament proper. Nepomniachtchi and Giri lead with 2.5 points from three rounds. Anand is in third place (2/3). Nepomniachtchi won an endgame duel with Vladimir Kramnik when the top seed and world #2 miscalculated in time trouble. Nepomniachtchi also won a very sharp opening duel versus Evgeny Tomashevsky - it looked as though black is lost by force by move 12 or so in a book line of the Scotch.
Anish Giri won an impressive attacking game versus Gelfand and he also converted a long endgame grind against Tomashevsky. Mamedyarov also beat Gelfand who seems out of form. Anand won with a peculiar material balance versus Mamedyarov. The Indian created a mating attack deep in an endgame with R+ Kt+ B versus R + B+ 3 pawns (there were opposite bishops).
The DIAGRAM, White to Play (White: Anand Vs Black: Mamedyarov, Tal Mem 2016 Moscow) looks near balanced. White's extra piece is matched by three black pawns and white's running out of pawns. But in reality, it's White to play and win here.
Anand played 45.Re3! Kh7 46.Rxd6! Rb8 The fork on e7 protects the d5 pawn for one move and white finds a liquidation after 47.Rb6 Rxb6 48.axb6 Bxd5 49.Nxg7 Rg2+ 50.Kf1 Rg6 [Obviously 50. - Rxg7 loses since the b-pawn runs) Play continued 51.Nxh5 Bc4+ 52.Kf2 Rxb6 53.Nf6+! Kh6 [ Black's lost since 53...Kg6 54.Nd7 hits Rb6 and threatens Ne5xc4.] Now white had 54.Rg3! (1-0). [The threat of Bd2# can be stopped only by 54.Rg3 Rd6 55.Ne4 Rd3 56.Bg7+ Kh5 57.Nf6+ Kh4 58.Rg4+ Kh3 59. Rxc4]
Pentala Harikrishna is the new entrant to top ten territory. He had a sterling Olympiad, scoring unbeaten 5.5 points from 9 games against opposition rated at an average 2751, for Elo performance of 2831. After the Olympiad, Harikrishna has scored 2.5/3 in the Spanish league.
Anand started the Tal Memorial in miserable fashion, suffering two losses and playing seven draws in the blitz precursor. The blitz tournament was used to decide pairing numbers. In a 10-person round-robin, everybody gets uneven colour split with nine games each. The top five in the Blitz tourney get five whites -significant given white's 55-45 lead in scores. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov ran away with the blitz event, scoring 7.5/9 with Levon Aronian (5.5) second. Peter Svidler, Anish Giri and Ian Nepomniachtchi (5) took the other three white slots.
The pecking order has not been the same in the tournament proper. Nepomniachtchi and Giri lead with 2.5 points from three rounds. Anand is in third place (2/3). Nepomniachtchi won an endgame duel with Vladimir Kramnik when the top seed and world #2 miscalculated in time trouble. Nepomniachtchi also won a very sharp opening duel versus Evgeny Tomashevsky - it looked as though black is lost by force by move 12 or so in a book line of the Scotch.
Anish Giri won an impressive attacking game versus Gelfand and he also converted a long endgame grind against Tomashevsky. Mamedyarov also beat Gelfand who seems out of form. Anand won with a peculiar material balance versus Mamedyarov. The Indian created a mating attack deep in an endgame with R+ Kt+ B versus R + B+ 3 pawns (there were opposite bishops).
The DIAGRAM, White to Play (White: Anand Vs Black: Mamedyarov, Tal Mem 2016 Moscow) looks near balanced. White's extra piece is matched by three black pawns and white's running out of pawns. But in reality, it's White to play and win here.
Anand played 45.Re3! Kh7 46.Rxd6! Rb8 The fork on e7 protects the d5 pawn for one move and white finds a liquidation after 47.Rb6 Rxb6 48.axb6 Bxd5 49.Nxg7 Rg2+ 50.Kf1 Rg6 [Obviously 50. - Rxg7 loses since the b-pawn runs) Play continued 51.Nxh5 Bc4+ 52.Kf2 Rxb6 53.Nf6+! Kh6 [ Black's lost since 53...Kg6 54.Nd7 hits Rb6 and threatens Ne5xc4.] Now white had 54.Rg3! (1-0). [The threat of Bd2# can be stopped only by 54.Rg3 Rd6 55.Ne4 Rd3 56.Bg7+ Kh5 57.Nf6+ Kh4 58.Rg4+ Kh3 59. Rxc4]
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player