Month: April 2015

Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran lost to co-leader Russian GM Daniil Dubov to lose the lead at the Aeroflot Open, 2015. Playing the black side of a Ruy Lopez, Sasikiran was holding tight in a rook endgame until an unfortunate slip cost him the game.

Reaching the time-control, white had just played 40.Ra3 with the point that 40…Rxc2? 41.Rc3 Rxg2 42.Rg3+ and the b pawn queens. Hence, black should have played something like 40…Kf6! where he holds. Instead, Sasi went captured on c2 and ended up losing after 40…Rxc2 41.Rc3 Rd2 when the b-pawn is simply too fast.

Dubov shares lead with Nepomniachtchi

Sasi’s slip proved costly for him, enabling GM Dubov to share the lead with GM Nepomniachtchi who won his game.

Meanwhile, GM Adhiban registered a very important victory with the black pieces agains GM Korobov of Ukraine where he nursed his advantage to a winning rook endgame. This win took his tally to a commendable 4.5/6 in the super-strong field.

The other Indians in the fray had a bad day with GM Sethuraman, GM Vishnu Prasanna and IM Swayams Mishra drawing their games. GM Ankit Rajpara had to face defeat despite playing the white pieces while GM Gujrathi lost defending with black pieces. GM Sandipan Chanda too slipped to suffer another loss.

Results of Indian players in Group A

Name	Rtg	Result	Name	Rtg
Dubov Daniil	2627	1 – 0	Sasikiran Krishnan	2682
Korobov Anton	2694	0 – 1	Adhiban B.	2646
Jumabayev Rinat	2572	1 – 0	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	2625
Mozharov Mikhail	2555	½ – ½	Sethuraman S.P.	2623
Swayams Mishra	2440	½ – ½	Goganov Aleksey	2598
Kotronias Vasilios	2565	½ – ½	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2477
Ankit R. Rajpara	2477	0 – 1	Yilmaz Mustafa	2570
Sandipan Chanda	2569	0 – 1	Asgarizadeh Ahmad	2412

(winners are in bold)

All standings

The Indian chess-players had a dull day in the fifth round of the Aeroflot Open, 2015. The Aeroflot has traditionally been a very strong event with many of the best grandmasters competing in Moscow, Russia.

Sasikiran & 3 others lead

At the end of five rounds, four players viz., GM Ian Nepomniachtchi , GM Jorden Van Foreest, GM Daniil Dubov and GM Krishnan Sasikiran lead the pack with 4.0/5. Indian star GM Sasikiran settled for a draw with white pieces after 29 moves with co-leader GM Van Foreest. GM Nepomniachtchi and GM Dubov had to win their respective games to join the leaders.

The other Indians in the fray had a dour outing.

Adhiban, Gujrathi, Rajpara & Swayams draw

Grandmasters Adhiban, Gujrathi, Rajpara drew their respective games with players rated lower to them. IM Swayams Mishra held fort against higher rated GM Pavel Pnkratov of Russia to earn a draw.

Sethuraman, Chanda & Prasanna lose

GMs Sethuraman, Chanda and Vishnu Prasanna had to concede losses to players rated higher than them. India’s National champion GM Sethuraman lost to Hungarian star GM Richard Rapport while GM Sandipan Chanda fell to Russian GM Aleksey Goganov. GM Prasanna had to accept defeat against UAE’s strongest player GM Salem A.R. Saleh.

Results and pairings for Indian players: http://chess-results.com/tnr164197.aspx?lan=1&art=25&fedb=IND&wi=821

You can watch the live broadcast of the games in your FollowChess App.