CHESS#1241

Dronavalli Harika lost to Tan Zhongyi in an epic semi-final at the Women’s World Championships (WWC) in Tehran. Harika went down in an Armageddon, drawing with the white pieces, after the duo had scrambled alternate wins first in normal time and then in six tiebreaks. In prior matches, the Chinese WGM had knocked out her compatriot and top seed, Ju Wenjun, and also beaten Padmini Rout in the quarter-finals. 

This is the second time Harika has made it to the semi-finals and lost a close match. The final between Tan and Anna Muzychuk also went into a tiebreaker, with Tan winning 2.5-1.5. Anna could emulate her younger sister, Mariya, who went all the way, winning the KO WWC after beating Harika in 2015.

There was good news on another front for Indian fans. Nihal Sarin completed his IM title at the Aeroflot Open. While Vladimir Fedoseev (7/9) won the premier, Nihal was playing in the second group. The 12-year-old from Thrissur knocked off the required norm and pulled his rating above 2400 Elo. Nihal joins his younger colleague, “Praggu” Praggnanandhaa in the ranks of Indian IMs. The future of Indian chess is obviously in good hands. 

The Sharjah Grand Prix was accounted to be among the most boring Super GM events ever. Even participants who did well called it that. Alexander Grischuk, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov tied for 1-3 with 5.5 points from 9 games each. Ding Liren, Michael Adams, Dmitry Jakovenko, Hikaru Nakamura and Ian Nepomniachtchi (all 5)  registered plus scores. 

Given that this was a 9-round Swiss with only 18 players, the format seemed a little clumsy. Vachier-Lagrave said his games lacked content and were uninteresting. Pavel Eljanov (who scored 50 per cent) called it downright boring. 

The rule of thumb is that a Swiss yields a clear leader given N+1 games where N is the nearest square root of total participants. In this case, we should have seen a clear leader by round 5 (4 is the Square root of 16). But play was very cautious, and by the end, pairings were forced, leading to colour distortions. Adams had to play three successive blacks, which is absurd. 

The DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (White: Harika Vs Black: Tan, WWC Tehran 2017, Armageddon) will haunt the Indian GM. It’s Armageddon: White has an extra minute in blitz but black wins if the game is objectively drawn. 

White can win easily with 57. Qd5+ Ke7 58. Qg5+ K-anywhere 59. Qh4 Or 57. Qd5+ K-g6/g7/g8 58. Qg5+ or 57. Qd5+ Kf8 58. Qd8+ or 57. Qd5 Ke8 58. Qe6+ Kd8/f8 59. Qf6+ . She played 57. Qe1 instead and missed several later shots at queen exchanges. (0-1, 99 moves).
 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player