CHESS #1368

The World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk is featuring its usual mix of crazy errors and upsets. The first round saw five qualifiers from the Indian contingent of Pentala Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Baskaran Adhiban, S P Sethuraman, S L Narayanan, Abhijeet Gupta, Chithambaram Aravindh, Nihal Sarin and Karthikeyan Murali. 

The trio of Harikrishna, Gujrathi and Adhiban were all higher rated than their respective opponents and qualified smoothly for round two, winning their matches without tiebreaks. Youngster Sarin beat the much higher-rated Jorge Cori convincingly in the classicals.  The 20-year-old Chithambaram Aravindh pulled off a much bigger upset, beating Michael Adams in a six game tiebreaker. 

Meanwhile, strife in the Bengal Chess Association (BCA), which was briefly reported last time, has escalated. After GM Dibyendu Barua levelled multiple allegations against BCA secretary, IM Atanu Lahiri, the BCA held an Emergency Meeting, and stripped Lahiri of executive powers.  

Barua accused Lahiri of issuing boycott orders against several players, including a nine-year-old. He also alleged Lahiri diverted a state government grant of Rs 35 lakh per annum for the BCA to teach chess in tribal areas, to a private organisation where Lahiri himself is a director. 

The BCA has issued a show-cause notice to Lahiri asking him to explain these allegations. It has also constituted a Disciplinary Committee to probe all allegations. The All India Chess Federation has also constituted a probe, to run concurrently and independently. The AICF has also directed the BCA to conduct elections to the BCA Committee, by end-October 2019. It has appointed a three-person committee to oversee this process. 

While scandals of this nature are endemic to many sports federations, they are invariably damaging to the sport in question. Indian Chess has already been through a version of this. There was a huge legal storm in 2006, which ended up with the Madras High Court disqualifying the AICF secretary of the time, P T Ummer Koya. There are fears that this BCA affair could also escalate since Lahiri is an AICF office-bearer and government funds are involved. 

The Diagram, White to Play  (White: Sarin Vs Black Cori , First Rd, game 1 World Cup 2019) illustrates the attacking power of opposite bishops. White could win here with 39. Bxf7! Rxf7 40. h6+ Kg8 41. Qd8. 

But just before the time control Nihal chose 39. Rxd3 g5 40. h6+ Kf8 41. Qh5 Bxf2!? 42. Rf3! [ If 42. Kxf2? Rc2+ 43. Kf3 Qf1+ 44. Kg4 Rf2 is at least a draw for black] Black tried 42. — Qg1+ 43. Kh3 Qh1+ 44. Kg4 Qxh5+ 45. Kxh5 Bd4. Now White’s winning — active king, strong passed pawn. The game ended 46. a5 Ra7 46. a6! f6 47. Ra3 Kd8 48. Bb7 Bc5 and 1-0 in 57 moves. 
 

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Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player