CHESS #1369

The World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia, turned out to be a disappointment for the large Indian contingent. P Harikrishna and Vidit Gujrathi lasted until the third round and went down to Kirill Alekseenko and Wesley So, respectively. Both Indian GMs lost their opening game and neither could break back. Harikrishna went down 2-0 as opted for desperate complications. 

Nihal Sarin lost to Eltaj Safarliin a tight second round tiebreaker. Sarin won the first game in superb style, playing what Magnus Carlsen described as "a perfect Spanish" attack. He was better in game 2 but very short of time as Safarli tried a wild Evans Gambit. Unfortunately, he made a huge blunder and he couldn't recover his psychological equilibrium in the tiebreaks. 

After Round III, the last 16 includes Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, Kiril Alekseenko, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Lenier Perez Dominguez, Liem Quang Le, Jeffery Xiong, Peter Svidler, Jan Krzysztof Duda, Teimour Radjabov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Nikita Vituigov, Alexander Grischuk, Yu Yangyi and Ding Liren. The two finalists win candidates places. 

The "missing" stars include Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin and Anish Giri, who have all suffered upset defeats. It's been the usual mixture of sublime chess and outright howlers as nerves and time controls have had their say. 

The Women's Grand Prix, which is taking place concurrently at Skolkovo, Russia, offers two spots for the 2021 Women's Candidates. This is a 12-player, round robin. Koneru Humpy and Dronavalli Harika are playing.  The field also includes reigning world champion, JuWenjun, and her 2019 challenger, Alexandra Goryachkina, both of who are exempt from qualification requirements regardless of respective performances here. 

One of them will win the title match and the other automatically qualifies for the 2021 Candidates. After eight rounds, Ju leads with 6.5 while Humpy (6) is in second and Goryachkina (5) is running third. Hence, it's possible that third-fourth spot will actually qualify for the Candidates. Harika (4) would need an extraordinary burst in the last three rounds to make it through.  

The Diagram White To Play   (White: SarinVs Black: Eltaj Safarli, World  Cup  2019, Rd  2, Game  1), is  a classic Spanish Breyer Variation. White has  gained space and his  pieces  are more active — take a look at the Bb7 for instance. 

White converted with 28. Nh4! Kf8. The threat was 29. cxb5 cb5 30. Nxg6 29. c5! Nb8. Black has no  meaningful moves left. 30. Rd6 Red8The finish is the lovely 31. Ngf5! gxf532. Nxf5 Qc733. Nxg7 Kxg734. Bxh6+! Kxh635. Rxf6+ Kg536. Rf5+ Kh637. Qe2!(1-0). The threats of mate and Rxf7, or plain Re3-g3 are unstoppable. The Nb8/Bb7 are just ridiculously placed. Doing this to a strong grandmaster at a classical control is incredible. 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player