The first round of the Qatar Masters Open 2015 took off with a bang as a few big names suffered upsets while many others were held to draws. The top board itself provided the most surprising result of the opening round – World Champion Magnus Carlsen could only draw against IM Nino Batsiashvili.
The Carlsen-Batsiashvili game took off with a Reti opening that resembled a reversed Benko Gambit. Typically, Carlsen outplayed his opponent and emerged with a nice positional advantage in the endgame. However, Carlsen surprisingly mishandled his position and the game soon petered out to a draw.
On the other hand, Chinese sensation GM Wei Yi suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Indian IM Shardul Gagare. Wei Yi’s opening experiment with the Blumenfeld Gambit backfired as Gagare emerged with an advantageous position out of the opening. Despite missing a few winning chances, Gagare dominated for the entire course of the game, which finally ended on move 53 when Wei Yi decided to resign. However, analysis by engines and experts suggests that Wei Yi’s resignation was a bit premature.
The table immediately next to the the Gagare-Wei Yi game witnessed another surprise – untitled Chinese player Xu Yinglun inflicted an upset on GM Nikita Vitiugov. It must be borne in mind that Xu Yinglun had scored a GM norm at the Qatar Masters 2014, remaining unbeaten throughout the event.
Several top-notch GMs like Ivanchuk, Harikrishna and Jakovenko were also held to draws by opponents rated almost 250 rating points below them.
Round 1 Results: Here