Delhi 2018 Round 2+3: Grandmasters are not Gods!

by Sagar Shah - 11/01/2018

Three rounds have been completed at the 16th Delhi International 2018. We now have 11 players on 100% score with many grandmasters having to concede the draw or bite the dust. Top seed 2701 rated Arkadij Naiditsch was held to a draw by K. Ratnakaran. Second seed Farrukh Amonatov was also held to a draw. Abhijeet Gupta now takes the top board as players like Rozum and Gareyev suffered defeats. The latter lost a full point thanks to arriving three minutes to the round. All this action and much more in our round two and three report from the capital of India.

Video report of round two

An ocean of chess players!

A specially dedicated lounge for all the players of A section

The lounge is nice and quiet place to unwind and relax

And you can also snack on these for absolutely no cost

Strong security measures are enforced to ensure that the deserving player wins the massive prize money

In what was some sort of a mini upset, Arkadij Naiditsch was held to a draw by K. Ratnakaran

Naiditsch ...c4?! didn't seem like a great move. In fact it had only been played before in one game. Resolving the tension in the centre meant that White's f4-f5 would come much faster and stronger than Black's b5-b4.

Some people would have prepared for f5, but Ratna is Ratna! He goes for the f5 break with the neat point that Rxf5 is met with Ng3. In the game Black played exf5 and after Nf4! White was doing quite well.

Tiviakov had a lucky escape in the third round against Kaustuv Kundu

Black (Tiviakov) has just played his queen to f7. Why is it such a bad move?

Kaustuv Kundu would have got Tiviakov to resign immediately if he would have taken the knight on b4. As it turned out he played Rdc1 and the game ended in a draw!

Both the players in their typical poses! Gukesh meditates before the game, while Abhijeet gets ready for the kill.

This game was a really interesting match up between one of the top grandmasters of our country and a young and upcoming talent. For 80% of the game Gukesh was matching blow for blow and at some point was clearly better. But in time pressure he lost the plot and Gupta as he usually does, managed to trick his opponent.

The biggest upset of the day was definitely Sammed Shete's win over Ivan Rozum

Sammed Shete of Kolhapur played some fine bit of chess to beat his much fancied opponent Ivan Rozum. Sammed played the opening well, also the middlegame and then set a very sly trap into which his opponent fell.

Sammed (White) has just moved his queen to g3. Rozum completely oblivious to the idea played his rook to c4. And Now Sammed shocked his opponent with the next move. Can you find it?

Deep Sengupta feeling the cold in the morning round...

...but quite comfortable in the afternoon! He is on 3.0/3.

Deepan Chakkravarthy begins with 3.0/3

Pizza on offer at the cafeteria at very reasonable price

You have dosa as well!

Mrudul Dehankar's father having a good time!

World famous photographer David Llada is here with his family. That's his daughters Nahui and Isel.

The Gareyev incident:

In the second round there was an interesting incident where Timur Gareyev came late to the round by thirty three minutes. The walk over time was half an hour and he reached thirty three minutes late. He was allowed to play the game and later on when he had won, he was awarded a loss due to coming late to the round. What exactly had happened? Stay tuned, we will bring you an entire article on this issue with interviews of the chief arbiter and Gareyev and his opponent.

Timur Gareyev playing the third round after losing due to a walkover in round two

Chief arbiter Vasanth B.H. celebrated his birthday on the 10th of January

Results of round 2

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Naiditsch Arkadij	2701	1	1 - 0	1	IM	Kandil Adham	2294	68
2	69		Muthaiah Al	2291	1	½ - ½	1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2636	2
3	3	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2610	1	1 - 0	1	FM	Gajwa Ankit	2284	72
4	71		Koustav Chatterjee	2288	1	+ - -	1	GM	Gareyev Timur	2605	4
5	5	GM	Rozum Ivan	2595	1	1 - 0	1		Ajay Krishna S	2280	74
6	73	FM	Rathanvel V S	2284	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Sengupta Deep	2586	6
7	7	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	1	1 - 0	1	FM	Matta Vinay Kumar	2269	76
8	75	FM	Srinath Rao S.V.	2270	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2580	8
9	9	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	1	1 - 0	1		Saurabh Anand	2251	78
10	11	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2556	1	½ - ½	1		Nayak Rajesh	2247	80

Results of round 3

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	45	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2372	2	½ - ½	2	GM	Naiditsch Arkadij	2701	1
2	47	CM	Gukesh D	2354	2	0 - 1	2	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2610	3
3	49		Sammed Jaykumar Shete	2337	2	1 - 0	2	GM	Rozum Ivan	2595	5
4	6	GM	Sengupta Deep	2586	2	½ - ½	2	FM	Hafiz Arif Abdul	2324	53
5	54		Kaustuv Kundu	2324	2	½ - ½	2	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	7
6	8	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2580	2	½ - ½	2	FM	Mitrabha Guha	2319	57
7	56		Saravana Krishnan P.	2323	2	0 - 1	2	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	9
8	12	GM	David Alberto	2553	2	½ - ½	2	GM	Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi	2318	59
9	61		Navalgund Niranjan	2312	2	½ - ½	2	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	13
10	14	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	2	1 - 0	2		Moksh Amit Doshi	2307	63

Pairing for round 4

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	3	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2610	3		3	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2475	22
2	9	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	3		3		Arjun Kalyan	2407	36
3	23	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2472	3		3	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	14
4	40	FM	Erigaisi Arjun	2386	3		3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2542	16
5	42	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2380	3		3	GM	Pruijssers Roeland	2536	18
6	1	GM	Naiditsch Arkadij	2701	2½		3		Sammed Jaykumar Shete	2337	49
7	41	IM	Sidhant Mohapatra	2382	2½		2½	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2636	2
8	43	IM	Abhishek Kelkar	2378	2½		2½	GM	Sengupta Deep	2586	6
9	7	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	2½		2½	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2372	45
10	53	FM	Hafiz Arif Abdul	2324	2½		2½	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2580	8

Live games begin at 10 a.m, Live Commentary at 12 p.m.

Live Commentary of round three by Sagar Shah, Niklesh Jain, Amruta Mokal, Vishal Sareen, Suat Atalik and Diptayan Ghosh.