CHESS#1310

India’s chess squads are gearing up for the Batumi Olympiad. The Open squad is led by Viswanathan Anand, who's playing Olympiads after a long gap. The women will be boosted by the return of Koneru Humpy, who hasn't played since the middle of 2016, when she took time off to get married and then became a parent. Both teams have held training sessions with their respective coaches, R B Ramesh and Jacob Aagaard.
 
Apart from Anand, the Open team includes Pentalya Harikrishna, who didn't play the last time, and Vidit Gujrathi. The fourth and fifth members would come from a pool of K Sasikiran, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Baskaran Adhiban and S P Sethuraman, based on the best two ratings on the cut-off date. Since the team tied for third-fourth in the last two Olympiads, without either Harikrishna or Anand, expectations this time are high.

 
The Indian women came fifth last time and would naturally hope for more with Humpy back. There would be some question marks about form, given the long absence. But the rest of the squad, Dronavalli Harika, Tania Sachdeva, Esha Karavade and Padmini Rout, are all in good touch and Aagaard is an excellent coach and psychologist who may be able to “tune up” Humpy's game.
 

Optimism is surely warranted. But several other squads in both sections will be equally optimistic. The US has three top 10 players and the rapidly improving Sam Shankland and will hope to retain gold. There are eternal contenders in China, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Ukraine. In the women's event, China remain hot favourites while Ukraine, Russia and Georgia could all do well.

 
Meanwhile, the Dortmund SuperGM is a tight contest at the moment. The eight-person round robin has crossed the halfway mark with four players sharing the lead. Vladimir Kramnik, Jan-Kryzsztof Duda, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Vladislav Kovalev all have 2.5. Anish Giri and Georg Meyer (2) are on 50 per cent. Obviously it could be anybody's tournament. Duda started brilliantly in his first Super GM with two wins in the first three rounds. But Kramnik beat him in round 4 to grab a share of the lead.
 
The Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY, (White: Duda Vs Black: Wojtaszek, Dortmund 2018) is the "Derby" between Poland's #1 and #2. Black tried a sharp tactical operation with 17. — b3!?  18.Bxb3 c4 19.Bxc4 Rxb2 [The point is 20. Qxb2 Nf3+. But white can afford to give up the Bc4].

White played 20.Qd1 Qb4 21.Nd4 Nxc4 22.Nc6 Qc5? [black must try 22. — Qb5 23. Nxe7+ Kh8 and it's anyone's game after 24. Nxc8 Rxc8 25. Nxf5 Bf6] Play continued 23.Qa4 Rd2 24.Rxc4 Qd6 25.Qa7 Bf6 26.Nh5 Kh8 27.Nxf6 exf6. White won easily,given material advantage and the shattered pawns as targets (1-0, 40 moves).
 Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player