Dubai Open Chess 2015

The 17th Dubai Open Chess tourney takes place from Apr 6 to 14.

Top seed is English GM David Howell 2687.

Some of the top Indian Chess masters who are participating:

  • Gupta Abhijeet
  • Grover Sahaj
  • Arun Prasad S.
  • Karthikeyan Murali
  • Sagar Shah

Official website http://dubaichess.ae

Results of round 1 : http://www.chess-results.com/tnr168053.aspx?lan=1&art=2&rd=1&turdet=YES&flag=30&wi=984

Games can be followed live in Follow Chess app!

Doeberl Cup 2015: Three Indians in fray

Three Indian players are competing at the O2C Doeberl Cup Premier, 2015. GMs Surya Shekhar Ganguly, R.B. Ramesh and WGM AarthieRamaswamy had a sedate start to the event by drawing their first round games and winning the second.

The top-seed GM Loek van Wely had a rough first day where he lost to Australian IM Gary Lane (Elo. 2350).

In a notable coincidence, the husband-wife pair of Gm R.B. Ramesh and WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy found themselves facing each other in the very first round. Though the game eventually did end in a draw, it was by no means a pre-arranged result as WGM Ramaswamy went all out with a classical bishop sacrifice.

Pairings for Round 3 (Top 12 boards) :

Bo. Name Rtg Pts. Pts. Name Rtg
1 Wallis Christopher 2359 2 2 Zhou Weiqi 2627
2 Lane Gary W. 2350 2 2 Smirnov Anton 2410
3 Johansen Darryl K 2409 2 2 Zelesco Karl 2252
4 Morris James 2401 2 2 Yuan Ye 2114
5 Ganguly Surya Shekhar 2619 2 Litchfield Frederick 2013
6 Heberla Bartlomiej 2556 Puccini Jack 2265
7 Loh Zachary 2230 Ramesh R.B. 2472
8 Izzat Kanan 2434 Atzmon-Simon Barak 2127
9 Bliznyuk Andrey 2093 Tan Justin 2407
10 Stojic Dusan 2147 Bjelobrk Igor 2366
11 Li Zuhao Luke 2323 Press Harry 1828
12 Ramaswamy Aarthie 2042 Dale Ari 2321

Aeroflot Chess Rd. 6: Sasikiran loses, Adhiban wins

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.

Sasi (Black) to play and reach the time control...
Sasi (Black) to play and reach the time control…

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

Grzegorz Gajewski is Polish chess champion!

Gajewski Polish Chess Champion 2015
credit : official website

Grzegorz Gajewski won the LOTTO Polish Chess Championship with 6.5/9 points on account of his superior Tie break. Gajewski was the Second of India’s Viswanathan Anand in the 2014 World Championship match against Magnus Carlsen.

Gajewski wins, Klekowski draws

Entering into the final round, Untitled Maciej Klekowski (2434) was in sole lead with 6/9 points. Gajewski managed to defeat Michal Olszewski (2567) when the latter blundered in a good position. Meanwhile Klekowski could only salvage a draw against GM Duda 2597.

Top 5 Standings

Rank Seed No. Name Rating Points Median Buchholz
1 1 Gajewski Grzegorz 2648 6.5 37.5
2 17 Klekowski Maciej 2434 6.5 36.5
3 9 Tomczak Jacek 2554 6 39
4 10 Piorun Kacper 2528 6 36.5
5 5 Duda Jan-Krzysztof 2597 5.5 36.5

All standings: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr166956.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=9&wi=821

Official website: http://imp2015.pl/tournaments/2/results

US Chess Championship 2015

US Chess Champs

The US Chess championship 2015 is taking place from April 1st to April 12th in St Louis, MO. Both the Open and Women’s sections will be played in 11 round robin format.

PLAYERS (open) ELØ 2644

Hikaru Nakamura 2798
Wesley So 2788
Gata Kamsky 2680
Alex Onischuk 2665
Sam Shankland 2661
Ray Robson 2656
Daniel Naroditsky 2640
Var Akobian 2622
Timur Gareev 2599
Sam Sevian 2548
Kayden Troff 2544
Conrad Holt 2525

PLAYERS (women) ELØ 2238

GM Irina Krush 2477
IM Nazi Paikidze 2333
WGM Tatev Abrahamyan 2322
IM Rusudan Goletiani 2311
WGM Katerina Nemcova 2279
WGM Anna Sharevich 2267
FM Alisa Melekhina 2235
WGM Sabina Foisor 2235
WIM Viktorija Ni 2188
WFM Jennifer Yu 2180
NM Apurva Virkud 2132
WIM Annie Wang 1901

SCHEDULE (Same for both)

Round 1 1-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 2 2-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 3 3-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 4 4-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 5 5-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Rest Day 6-Apr-2015
Round 6 7-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 7 8-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 8 9-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 9 10-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 10 11-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Round 11 12-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST
Playoff (if necessary) 13-Apr-2015 13:00 CDT 18:00 GMT 23:30 IST

The games will be broadcast live on Follow Chess app. Special thanks to Lennart Ootes.

Official website uschesschamps.com

Dull day for Indians at Aeroflot Open, 2015

aeroflot

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.