CHESS#1234

The Delhi Open tends to set a new participation record every year. The 15th edition has 1,800 participants spread across three groups with a total prize fund of Rs 51,51,000. The top seed is Farrukh Amonatov (2619) of Tajikistan. The top group features 27 GMs and 24 IMs and there are generous prizes down the line. 

This tournament will run concurrent to the Tata Steel Chess Tournament at Wijk An Zee. Magnus Carlsen (2840) is looking to take his fifth title and score a hattrick in consecutive wins. The other 13 are Wesley So (2808), Sergey Karjakin (2785), Levon Aronian (2780), Anish Giri (2773), Ian Nepomniachtchi (2767), Pentalya Harikrishna (2766), Pavel Eljanov (2755) , Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2750), Dmitri Andreikin (2736), Wei Yi (2704), Richard Rapport (2702), Loek Van Wely (2695) and Adhiban Baskaran (2653). 

It's a nice mix of solid elite players, two madly talented (and madly stylish) youngsters in Wei and Rapport, and the veteran, Van Wely. Adhiban won the last Tata "B" to qualify and he's known as a fearless scrapper. The B group is led by Markus Ragger (2697) with 10 players who are 2600-plus. The focus will be on the world junior champion, 15-year-old Jeffery Xiong (2667) who is the third seed. Xiong has a career graph that rivals the current world champion at the same age. 

The women’s world championship will be played in Tehran from February 10. Several top players will not participate. World champion, Hou Yifan, has explained why she won't play in a format she “completely disagrees with”. Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) and Nazi Pakidze-Barnes (USA) refuse to wear hijabs and Irina Krush (USA) is apprehensive about security as an American. Koneru Humpy is also not playing, for unknown reasons. Padmini Rout and Dronavalli Harika will represent India at the event. 

Fide is catching flak for its inability to organise this in a place with less restrictive dress codes. Ironically, Iranian women see this as positive for feminists in the Islamic Republic — Iran has several talented young players.  In another controversy, Veselin Topalov has pulled out of Fide events and the Grand Prix "until the leadership is changed for the better", writing a scathing open letter. 

Sasikiran won The Rilton Cup in Stockholm, with 7.5/10. The 12-year-old Nihal Sarin came close to his third and final IM norm while 13-year-old Sankalp Gupta, and Prince Bajaj did score IM norms.

The diagram is from a game featured before. It's been voted the Game of 2016 by Chessbase  readers. ( White: Carlsen,Magnus (2844) Vs Black: Tomashevsky,Evgeny (2728), Tata Steel-A, 2016) White to Play. Carlsen played 21.Nxe4 Qxh4 22.Rxh4 dxe4 23.dxc5! bxc5 24.Rd7 Rab8 25.b3! Black is near-zugzwang.  He played 25...a5 26.Rc7 a4 27.bxa4 Ba8 28.a5 Rb7 29.Rxc5 Ra7 30.Nc4 (1–0).  Very clinical.
 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player