CHESS #1373

CHESS #1373

The Fide Grand Swiss Open still looks wide open. After seven rounds, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian share the lead with 5.5 points each. They are followed by a pack of seven, including Magnus Carlsen, Alexander Grischuk, Parham Maghsoodloo, Kirill Alekseenko, David Antón Guijarro, Wang Hao and 

Nikita Vitiugov (all 5).

The winner of the 11-rounder qualifies for the Candidates. Of course, neither Carlsen nor Caruana need that spot, which could be the trigger for more excitement. Both world champion and the world #2 have survived dead-lost positions during this event, versus Vladislav Kovalev and Luke McShane respectively. Caruana has played a couple of tactical thrillers, as has Carlsen.

The Indian contingent isn’t doing well in terms of qualification but they’re not doing badly either. Viswanathan Anand (4.5) lost the first round to Evgeniy Najer and shares the 10th-29th spots with Baskaran Adhiban (4.5). The 13-year-old Raunak Sadhwani (4) is currently running a performance rating of 2730-plus. He could complete the GM title here even if he loses his next two games.

The World Youth Championship concluded in Mumbai with two or three Indians in the top ten in every section. The Indian youngsters won seven out of the 18 medals (three in six categories) available.

R Praggnanandhaa won gold in the under-18 open. There were silvers for Vantika Agrawal in under-18 girls, Srihari LR in under-14 open and Divya Deshmukh in under-14 girls. Bronze medals went to Sreeshwan Maralakshikari in under-14 open, Rakshitta Ravi in under-14 girls and Aronyak Ghosh in under-16 open.

Russia was the best performing nation with three golds however. Apart from Pragg, the golds went to Aydin Suleymanli of Azerbaijan (U-14 Open), Meruert Kamlaidenova from Kazakhstan (U-14 girls), Rudik Makarian of Russia (U-16 Open), Leya Garifullina of Russia (U-16 girls) and Polina Shuvalova of Russia (U-18 girls).

Pragg produced an unbeaten 9/11. The 14-year-old has a chance to “improve” on this, if he can repeat with another gold at the ongoing World Juniors in Delhi. The World Juniors is U-20. Previous winners are Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand. Pragg shares the lead with 3.5 after 4 rounds.

The diagram, Black to play (White: Alexey Shivor Vs Black: Caruana, Fide Swiss 2019) is about even but unbalanced. Black played 36.-- Rc8 37. Ba6 d5!? 38. a3 d4 39. Bxc8 f1=Q 40. Rxf1 Rxf1+ 41. Ka2 d3. Time control is done and the position remains approximately equal and unbalanced.

Play went 42. Ne3 Rf3 43. Bxf5 Qxe3 44. Qa5 Qe8 45. Qd5 Qg8 46. Be6 Qf8 47. h5 Re3. White may continue 48. Qd7 with an unclear position. Instead he played 48. g6? d2 49. Bf7 Re2 50. Qd3 Rh2 51. Qf3 Rg2!! (Zugzwang on an open board) 52. Qd3 Qb8! (0-1) The threats are Qxb2# and d1=Q.