18th Delhi GM Open 2020: G B Joshi stuns Harsha Bharathakoti

by Shahid Ahmed - 10/01/2020

The biggest open tournament in the country started its 18th edition on 9th January at Indira Gandhi Stadium, New Delhi. The tournament was inaugurated by Managing Worker and Chairman of Sahara India Pariwar, Subrata Roy. In the opening round, Harsha suffered the same fate as last year, as he again started with a loss, this time against Delhi's seasoned veteran G B Joshi. Harsha made an inaccurate sacrifice which his opponent had no trouble punishing. Dhananjay held Bhopal GM Open 2019 winner Nodirbek Yakubboev and Aashna Makhija held Chilean GM Rodrigo Schroeder to a draw respectively. The tournament boasts a total prize fund of ₹11100000. It was announced that next year it will be increased to ₹12500000. Photo: Niklesh Jain

Joshi, Dhananjay and Aashna score upsets

Delhi's season player G B Joshi stunned GM Harsha Bharathakoti in the opening round of 18th Delhi GM Open 2020. Playing with the black pieces, Joshi got a bad position out of the Symmetrical English opening.

GM Harsha Bharathakoti did not have the perfect start | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Harsha made an inaccurate sacrifice after failing to capitalize on the early advantage.

Harsha - Joshi

Harsha sacrificed here with 30.Nxf6. Can you find a better continuation for white?

Harsha's inaccurate sacrifice with 30.Nxf6 landed him in trouble immediately as he did not have any compensation for the knight.

What is the best continuation for black here after 31.Re5

White had to continue with his bluff as there is not much to do here. So white continued with 31.Re5 with no real threat except the obvious attack on g5. Black panicked and played 31...Rf5 here. Instead taking the rook with 31...Rxe5 gives no chances to white and all roads lead to victory for black only.

31...Rf5 gives an opportunity for white to bounce back? Find out how

It is not that Harsha's knight sacrifice went in vain. Due to his opponent's inaccuracy, he had a momentary chance to equalize, which he missed. Find out what did he miss.

Bhopal GM Open 2019 winner GM Nodirbek Yakubboev was held to a draw by Dhananjay S | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Yakubboev got an early opportunity to gain a pawn and huge advantage which he missed.

Dhananjay - Yakubboev

Find out why 16.Ne3 is a mistake

Dhananjay completely missed and played 16.Ne3, leaving c3-pawn unguarded. Yakubboev also missed the fact that he could grab the c3-pawn with 16...bxc3 and he continued with 16...e6 instead.

The final position was also favorable for Dhananjay

In the above diagram, Dhananjay repeated the moves with 45.Ne8 Ra7 46.Nf6 Rc7 and made a threefold repetition for a draw. However he could have taken his chances with 45.Ra1 with the idea of 46.Ne8 and trapping the rook and eventually win the game with precision.

In a game full of inaccuracies, Aashna managed to somehow salvage a draw against Rodrigo | Photo: Niklesh Jain

In a game arising from French Defence Classical variation, Chilean GM Rodrigo was the first one to make an unforced error with 18.Ng5 which surprisingly her opponent completely missed.

Rodrigo - Aashna

Find out why 18.Ng5 is a mistake

Aashna completely missed the tactics on c-file and played 18...Bxg5 instead.

There is an obvious idea for white here. What is it?

It is a surprise that Rodrigo missed such a simple idea. Jet lag could probably be the reason. White continued with 20.Ra2 instead of the obvious way of attack.

There could not be a more obvious move for white after 21...a6

White missed the absolutely obvious 22.Rxh7 for mysterious reasons which would have led to nothing but a win for white.

Photo Gallery

Managing Worker and Chairman of Sahara India Pariwar, Subrata Roy lights up the lamp during the Inauguration Ceremony | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Mr. Commonwealth Abhijeet Gupta with Subrata Roy | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Subrata Roy makes an inaugural move against a young kid | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Anish Gandhi went down against top seed Farrukh Amonatov | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Second seeded Russian GM Pavel Ponkratov made a short work of Manish Kumar in just 24 moves | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Vinayak Kulkarni lost to highest rated Indian of the event Karthikeyan Murali in just 29 moves | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Total 340 players in the A category, over 750 players in the B category and over 1000 players are taking part in the C category. The event was formally inaugurated by Mr. Subrata Roy, Managing Worker and Chairman of Sahara India Pariwar. In his speech Mr. Roy confirmed that Sahara Group will look into how Chess can be supported by the conglomerate. Meanwhile Mr. Bharat Singh Chauhab, Honorary Secretary of AICF announced that the next event will be held with ₹1.25 Crores as prize fund.

Replay all games

Round 1 results

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	90		Gandhi Anish	2168	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2631	1
2	2	GM	Ponkratov Pavel	2622	0	1 - 0	0		Manish Kumar (2006)	2168	91
3	92		Kulkarni Vinayak	2167	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2606	3
4	4	GM	Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo	2606	0	1 - 0	0	FM	Harshal Shahi	2166	93
5	94		Thrish Karthik	2165	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2603	5
6	6	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	2598	0	1 - 0	0		Soham Datar	2145	95
7	96		Dhananjay S	2144	0	½ - ½	0	GM	Yakubboev Nodirbek	2597	7
8	8	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	2592	0	+ - -	0		Utsab Chatterjee	2142	97
9	98	WGM	Kiran Manisha Mohanty	2133	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Goganov Aleksey	2583	9
10	10	GM	Mchedlishvili Mikheil	2578	0	1 - 0	0	CM	Liyanage Ranindu Dilshan	2124	99
11	100	WIM	Franco Valencia Angela	2123	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Rozum Ivan	2573	11
12	12	GM	Bogdanovich Stanislav	2562	0	1 - 0	0		Deepak Katiyar	2123	101
13	102		Dhar Rajib	2121	0	0 - 1	0	GM	David Alberto	2562	13
14	14	GM	Fedorov Alexei	2562	0	1 - 0	0		Kumar Gaurav	2120	103
15	104		Bakshi Rutuja	2118	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2558	15
16	16	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2550	0	1 - 0	0	WFM	Bommini Mounika Akshaya	2113	105
17	106	CM	Bhavesh Mahajan	2101	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2548	17
18	18	IM	Gholami Aryan	2541	0	1 - 0	0		Tiwari Arjun	2101	107
19	108		Barath Kalyan M	2091	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Debashis Das	2523	19
20	20	GM	Grover Sahaj	2521	0	1 - 0	0		Sarbojit Paul	2084	109
21	110		Santu Mondal	2083	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Visakh N R	2518	21
22	22	GM	Yudin Sergei	2508	0	1 - 0	0		Anadkat Kartavya	2082	111
23	112		Balkishan A.	2079	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Stupak Kirill	2506	23
24	24	GM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2502	0	0 - 1	0		Joshi Govind Ballabh	2075	113
25	114		Singh Soram Rahul	2071	0	- - +	0	GM	Rios Cristhian Camilo	2498	25
26	26	GM	Vasquez Schroeder Rodrigo	2487	0	½ - ½	0	WFM	Makhija Aashna	2068	115
27	116		Tejes Suresh Kumar	2067	0	0 - 1	0	IM	Kaczur Florian	2485	27
28	28	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2479	0	1 - 0	0		Bhattacharyya Soham	2066	117
29	118		Jay Kundaliya	2066	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2474	29
30	30	IM	Vignesh N R	2472	0	1 - 0	0		Mahindrakar Indrajeet	2066	119

Complete results

Round 2 pairings

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2631	1		1	IM	Abdisalimov Abdimalik	2381	48
2	47	GM	Czebe Attila	2392	1		1	GM	Ponkratov Pavel	2622	2
3	3	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2606	1		1	IM	Eraschenkov Denis	2370	50
4	49	GM	Manik Mikulas	2378	1		1	GM	Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo	2606	4
5	5	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2603	1		1	IM	Neelash Saha	2356	54
6	51	IM	Muthaiah Al	2367	1		1	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	2598	6
7	53	FM	Audi Ameya	2359	1		1	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	2592	8
8	9	GM	Goganov Aleksey	2583	1		1		Sahoo Utkal Ranjan	2348	56
9	55		Kaustuv Kundu	2349	1		1	GM	Mchedlishvili Mikheil	2578	10
10	11	GM	Rozum Ivan	2573	1		1		Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri	2306	60
11	57	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2329	1		1	GM	Bogdanovich Stanislav	2562	12
12	13	GM	David Alberto	2562	1		1	IM	Mohammad Fahad Rahman	2300	62
13	58	IM	Lammers Markus	2325	1		1	GM	Fedorov Alexei	2562	14
14	15	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2558	1		1	IM	Sangma Rahul	2291	64
15	59	FM	Pranesh M	2317	1		1	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2550	16
16	17	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2548	1		1	FM	Aaryan Varshney	2287	66
17	61	FM	Srihari L R	2302	1		1	IM	Gholami Aryan	2541	18
18	19	GM	Debashis Das	2523	1		1	FM	Manish Anto Cristiano F	2280	68
19	67		Mohite Ranveer	2281	1		1	GM	Grover Sahaj	2521	20
20	21	GM	Visakh N R	2518	1		1		Pranav V	2265	70
21	71		Lokesh N.	2264	1		1	GM	Yudin Sergei	2508	22
22	23	GM	Stupak Kirill	2506	1		1	WIM	Luong Phuong Hanh	2256	72
23	25	GM	Rios Cristhian Camilo	2498	1		1		Raahul V S	2233	76
24	27	IM	Kaczur Florian	2485	1		1	FM	Wagh Suyog	2219	80
25	73		Varun V	2256	1		1	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2479	28
26	29	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2474	1		1		Sapaev Maksad	2207	82
27	75	FM	Navalgund Niranjan	2246	1		1	IM	Vignesh N R	2472	30
28	31	IM	Nigmatov Ortik	2467	1		1		Aradhya Garg	2197	84
29	33	IM	Taher Yoseph Theolifus	2462	1		1	FM	Bognar Csaba Dr.	2192	86
30	83	GM	Ziatdinov Raset	2203	1		1	GM	Neverov Valeriy	2460	34

Complete pairings

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