CHESS#1257

The Paris leg of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) has started and the World Team Championships are on in Khanty Mansiysk. The Blind Chess Olympiad is also on, in Macedonia. The Euro Individual has just concluded.

 

The GCT is a 10-player double round robin. The first set is at rapid controls (25 minutes +10 seconds delay per move). The delay control gives an extra 10 seconds to respond to any move but it doesn’t add up, unlike increments. The second set is blitz (5 minutes +3 secs delay).

 

After three rounds, Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So lead with 2.5 each. Carlsen won versus Maxime Vachier-Lagrave,  Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. So won against Etienne Bacrot and Fabiano Caruana. Hikaru Nakamura and Veselin Topalov are  on 2.

 

The world champion has lots to prove after his disastrous outing at the Norway Altibox. Levon Aronian won with 6/9 and 2900 performance that puts him back above 2800. Vladimir Kramnik and Nakmura shared second (5) and Carlsen (4) came ninth with only his previous challenger, Sergey Karjakin (3.5) below him.

 

At the World Teams, Russia leads with 9 match points (2 for a win) from 5 matches in the 10-nation round robin. Poland and China (8) share second-third. Turkey (7) has surprised. India (6) is doing reasonably in fifth place. The Indian squad is Vidit Gujrathi, Baskaran Adhiban, Murali Karthikeyan, Krishnan Sasikiran and Parimarjan Negi. Negi is a surprise. The computer science major from Stanford has hardly played for the past two years. But he’s done well. India has beaten Egypt, beaten USA, beaten Belarus and lost to Poland and China.

 

The Euro Individual saw Maxim Matlakov (8.5/10) emerge champion, while Baadur Jobava and Vladimir Fedoseev (both 8.5) were edged on tiebreaks. There were massive ties on 8 and 7.5 — these results are important because 20-odd players qualify for the World Cup.

 

The International Braille Association is organising the 15th World Chess Olympiad. There are 27 teams at the event and India began as the 19th seed. The India squad of Shirish Patil, Soundarya Kumar Pradhan, Kishan Gangolli, Ashvin Makwana and Aryan Joshi has started with two wins, versus Germany and Kosovo.

 

The Diagram, Black to Play, (White :  Varuzhan Akobian Vs Black: B Adhiban, 11th World Teams 2017) will make it to the anthologies.  Adhiban was out of form, starting with 0/2. But he doesn’t miss shots like 14...Rxf3! 15.Bxf3 Qf8! [ The dual threats are Qxf3, Bb4)

 

White played the forced 16.Ke2 b4! [ The threat of Ba6+ is forcing] 17.Qc4 Qxf3+! 18.Kxf3 Ne5+ 19.Kg3 Nxc4. Now black is not only materially ahead, he has a massive edge in development. After 20.  Rd1 c5 21.b3 Nd6 22.Bb2 Rf8 it was 0-1 (41 moves).

 

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Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player