CHESS #1344

The World Team’s Championship ended on a sad note for India. The team had done well until the last round. Then they met Russia (16 points), which had already won gold with a round to spare. 

A win would tie India for second at the least, and it looked very possible. Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Chithambaram Aravindh held serious advantages against Ian Nepomniachtchi and Dmitry Andreikin respectively. Baskaran Adhiban had the draw in hand against Sergey Karjakin while S P Sethuraman was admittedly, struggling against Alexander Grischuk. 

But while Grischuk duly won, neither Aravindh, nor Ganguly, could convert clearly winning positions. The narrow loss meant that India (11) was edged out of bronze by China (12) and England (13) took silver.  India had the better tiebreak versus both England and China so any conversion would have meant a medal. 

Russia drew England and Azerbaijan. India lost only one match, to Russia but there were five draws, with China, USA, England, Iran and Azerbaijan. Adhiban (Board 1) and Ganguly (Board 3) won individual golds scoring 6/9 and 7/9 respectively for 2800-plus performances. Adhiban jumps 18 spots to #40 and becomes the fifth Indian to get past the 2700 mark after Viswanathan Anand, Krishnan Sasikiran, Pentala Harikrishna, and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi. In the concurrent event, the Indian women (9) finished sixth, behind runaway champions, China (18) with Russia (14) and Georgia (12) picking up silver and bronze. 

At the Prague Festival, Nikita Vitiugov (5.5 from eight rounds) leads the Masters Section with a round to go. Radek Wojtaszek (4.5) is second, with a bunch of six players including Harikrishna and Gujrathi (both 4) sharing the 3rd to 8th spot. Vitiugov is assured a share of first at least. In the Challengers, bottom-seeded Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa beat top seed, and legend, Alexei Shirov. David Antón Guijarro (6/9) won with Jan Krejcí (5.5) second and Peter Michalík (5) third. Praggnanandhaa (4) was joint 7th. 

Wang Hao (7.5 from 9 rounds) took the title in the masters Section at the HDBank Festival in Vietnam. Another Indian prodigy, Gukesh D (7) shared 2nd-4th with Wen Yang, Stanislav Bogdanovich, Liu Guanchu (all 7). Gukesh also picked up 19 Elo for his performance. 

The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (Demchenko, Anton - Gukesh, D, HD Bank 2019) is likely to make it into any book of great swindles. White, a very strong player is winning. Black played 42.—  Rd8 ! 43. Qxd8 ?! [ 43.Qf3 hitting h5 is a safe win] Qxb3 44. e7 Qb7+ 45. Kh3?? 

The only move was 45. Rf3 b1=Q 46. e8=Q Qxf5 47. Qe2 and white should win this crazy position. Now black wins with the stunning 45.— b1=Q 46. e8=Q Qxf5+!! [ 47. Rxf5 Qh1#] 47. Kh2 Qc2+ (0-1). 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player