28th Abu Dhabi Masters 2022 R2-3: Arjun Erigaisi emerges sole leader
Arjun Erigaisi outplayed Serbia no.1 Aleksandar Indjic to emerge sole leader at 28th Abu Dhabi Masters 2022. 26 players including 11 Indians are in pursuit at 2.5/3 each. IM Aditya Samant first drew with GM Nihal Sarin in Round 2 and then he defeated GM Abhijeet Gupta in the third round, after the latter made a simple miscalculation. IM Sammed Shete defeated GM Robert Hovhannisyan (ARM) with a masterful play in the endgame. He drew the next game against GM Sethuraman S P. Among the women, WIM Rucha Pujari and WIM Sakshi Chitlange picked up emphatic wins over IM Dushyant Sharma and IM Vardaan Nagpal respectively. Round 4 starts today at 5 p.m. local time, 6:30 p.m. IST. Photo: Rupali Mullick
Abhijeet Gupta implodes against Aditya Samant
IM Aditya S Samant is a strong player and there is no doubt that he is a future grandmaster of India. After a draw with Nihal Sarin in the second round, he was up against GM Abhijeet Gupta. The five-time Commonwealth champion, made a simple calculation error and resigned in just 22 moves. MPL 31st National Under-18 Open champion, CM Soham Kamotra endured a really tough position and eventually seized his opportunity when Bangladesh no.1, GM Ziaur Rahman blundered in the final moments of the game.
Round 2: Hovhannisyan - Sammed: 0-1
IM Sammed Jaykumar Shete (2381) scored a nice win against GM Robert Hovhannisyan (ARM, 2599) by using his king in the endgame.
Black brought his king all the way from g7 to e3. It definitely paid off in the end. It was certainly not an easy endgame to win for Black by any stretch of the imagination. However, the advancement of the king played a key role in earning the full point against Armenia no.10.
Rucha - Dushyant: 1-0
IM Dushyant Sharma (2406) went extremely wrong early in the middlegame against WIM Rucha Pujari (2229).
Black overstretched his pawns 15...g4 16.Nd2 Nxg3 17.fxg3 Bxd3 18.Qxd3 Qd6 19.e4 Kd7 and we reach the above position. 20.0-0 Rbf8 21.exd5 Qxd5 22.Rf5 Qd6 24.Ne4 Qg6 25.Rf6 Qg8 26.Nc5+ and Black resigned in three more moves as there was an impending checkmate threat.
Vardaan - Sakshi
White's position was already dwindling. 27.Rxc4 did not help his case bxc4 28.Be7 Rxe7 29.Qxe7 c3 and Black is now completely winning.
For more Round 2 photos, please click here.
Round 3: Arjun Erigaisi - Indjic: 1-0
GM Arjun Erigaisi (2689) scored a nice victory over Serbia no.1 GM Aleksandar Indjic (2613).
Both White and Black have color weaknesses for the obvious reasons. However, Black is in serious trouble as his king is more vulnerable than White's. Apart from the h3-pawn, both sides have their pawn on the same color as their bishop and the opposite of their color weaknesses. Arjun had no trouble converting his decisive advantage into a full point.
Abhijeet - Aditya Samant
GM Abhijeet Gupta had a momentary blindspot as he played 19.Be3 after Black took his knight 18...Bxg3. He was certainly hoping for d5 to regain his piece after the retreat of the g3-bishop. However, that does not work because Aditya found the intermediate move 19...Bc4 20.Qd2 Bb8 and now White has no way to recover the piece as d5 is no longer a fork/double attack. White resigned after two more moves.
Eric - Jobava
Black is completely winning here. Can you find the winning combination which Jobava executed in the game? It was a perfect bounce back after he lost his previous round game against Indonesia no.1 woman, IM Irine Kharisma Sukandar (2373). This position would certainly make it to the Clearance chapter in future chess books.
Tanmay - Vokhidov: 0.5-0.5
The new Olympiad Gold medalist, GM Shamisiddin Vokhidov (UZB, 2552) survived by the skin of his teeth against FM Tanmay Chopra (2337).
Black blundered big time 32...Ne5. This is a prime example of overprotection going terribly wrong. The position was already doomed. 32...Ne5 just hastened the demise of Black's position. 33.Rxf5 gxf5 34.Qh7+ Kf8 and now 35.Ne6+ finishes things. Instead, he opted for 35.Qxf5. Black soon made another big mistake which gave White another opportunity to win, which he could not find and settled for a draw by repetition.
For more Round 3 photos, please click here.
A total of 148 players including 43 GMs, 35 IMs, 7 WGMs and 3 WIMs are taking part from 31 countries across the world including India. The tournament is being organized by Abu Dhabi Chess Club & Mind Games from 17th to 25th August 2022 at Abu Dhabi, UAE. The nine-round Swiss league tournament has a time control of 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move no.1.
