Gibraltar 2018: Four Indians with a chance of a GM norm

by Sagar Shah - 30/01/2018

Seven rounds have been completed at the Gibraltar Masters 2018. Although no Indian is in the top ten rankings right now, this tournament is interesting from the point of view that many of the youngsters have a chance to achieve their GM norms. The ones who have the best chance are (numbers in the bracket are their rating performance) Prithu Gupta (2639), Hemant Sharma (2581), Praggnanandhaa (2570) and Raunak Sadhwani (2532). It is interesting to note that two out of the above four names (Raunak and Pragg) have yet to hit their teens! Detailed report from one of the strongest open tournaments in the world.

The general level of chess is improving!

Levon Aronian after his win with Shardul Gagare said, "The general level of chess is improving. Earlier it was fun playing against the 2600 guys. Not so much anymore!" The general level of play has improved tremendously. Just because you have a huge rating advantage over your opponent is no guarantee that you will win your games. One breed of opposition that is extremely dangerous these days is - "The Indian youngsters"! They work incessantly on chess, sometimes even to the degree that they give up everything else in life. It's not that someone forces them, they do it out of their own volition. They truly love chess and hence the chances of them improving at the game are much higher!

At the Gibraltar Masters top Indian grandmasters have not been doing especially great. None of them is currently in the top 10 rankings. However, the biggest takeaway for our players is the youngsters getting to rub shoulders with the best in the world.

Prithu Gupta, the boy from Delhi, has played some phenomenal bit of chess in the tournament and is currently unbeaten after seven rounds with a rating performance of 2638

Draws against Le Quang Liem, Iturrizaga, Muzychuk, Svane and Rasmus is amazing! Not to forget his win over Fabien Libiszewski!

It seems like Delhi lads are having great fun at this event. The next player who is has great chances of a GM norm after Prithu is Hemant Sharma

Just look at the top two names in that list! Little would have Hemant imagined that he would get to play Hari and Aronian!

Here's his nice win against Marin Bosiocic where Hemant played carefully in the opening, and once he got his opportunity was all over his opponent:

Good news for Indian fans - R. Praggnanandhaa has a chance to achieve his second GM norm at the Gibraltar Masters 2018.

Pragg wasn't doing so great apart from his draw against Nigel Short until round 6. But in the seventh round he was able to beat the strong Indian GM G.N. Gopal

12-year-old Raunak Sadhwani has been showing some fantastic chess at the event

Draws against Akobian, Goryachkina, Nihal Sarin and Khotenashvili. These are some big names in the chess world. Raunak also beat Spanish IM Almagro. Here's his draw against Nihal:

Sandipan scored one of the most unusual victories of his chess career against Vassily Ivanchuk

We call his game unusual because he made a clear error out of the opening and was worse. But then Ivanchuk returned the favour. The game lasted only 23 moves, but had a lot of action.

We will have to ask Sandipan as to what was he thinking when he took the pawn on a4 with his knight Rxa4, Bb5+ Bd7 was two pieces for a rook for Black. There was definitely some deep thought put into this by the Indian GM, but the computers seem to give Black a clear advantage.

Now, this position is worthy of entering any defensive manual book. White has just recaptured the bishop on f1, how should Black continue? What is his only way to play for a draw?

Abhijeet Gupta is currently the highest ranked Indian. He has scored 5.0/7 with draws against strong opposition - MVL and Navara

Abhijeet Gupta on how he surprised MVL out of the opening

Harikrishna was doing very well until round six with 4.5/6, but lost to Grigory Oparin in the seventh round

In spite of losing his last two rounds to Aronian and Akobian, Shardul still has a 2600+ performance. That's because he had defeated Vitiugov and Romain.

Shardul Gagare after his loss to Levon Aronian

Tejaswini Sagar is proving herself by a solid 3.0/7 with a 2348 performance and +40 Elo gain

Hikaru Nakamura is currently leading the tournament with 6.0/7 along with...

David Howell.

India's Tania Sachdev has been doing phenomenal job interviewing all the players at the event. You must check out her work on the Tradewise Gibraltar Youtube Channel.

The battle of sexes was a big hit, with the male team led by Nigel Short winning against the female team! Here's the full show:

The full battle of sexes show!

Isn't the view spectacular?

For many chess players visiting Gibraltar is something like a dream! I am sure we will see many more Indians at the rock in 2019!

Performance of Indian players

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Pts.	Rk.	Group
5	GM	Harikrishna P.	2745	IND	½	½	1	1	1	½	0	4,5	50	Masters
25	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	2646	IND	1	1	½	½	0	1	1	5,0	24	Masters
31	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2610	IND	1	½	½	1	1	½	½	5,0	14	Masters
37	GM	Gopal G.N.	2593	IND	½	1	½	1	½	½	0	4,0	96	Masters
42	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2579	IND	½	½	1	1	1	1	0	5,0	27	Masters
45	GM	Narayanan S. L.	2573	IND	1	1	½	½	1	0	1	5,0	26	Masters
63	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2542	IND	1	1	½	½	0	½	1	4,5	43	Masters
68	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2533	IND	1	1	½	0	½	1	½	4,5	59	Masters
71	IM	Nihal Sarin	2524	IND	1	½	½	0	½	1	1	4,5	73	Masters
74	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	2515	IND	1	½	½	½	½	1	1	5,0	32	Masters
81	GM	Debashis Das	2501	IND	1	1	½	½	½	½	½	4,5	34	Masters
82	GM	Gagare Shardul	2494	IND	1	1	½	½	1	0	0	4,0	77	Masters
102	IM	Prasanna Raghuram Rao	2458	IND	1	0	1	1	0	½	½	4,0	94	Masters
108	GM	Venkatesh M.R.	2445	IND	1	1	½	½	½	0	1	4,5	41	Masters
114	IM	Swayams Mishra	2432	IND	1	½	1	0	½	0	½	3,5	123	Masters
119	IM	Raja Harshit	2427	IND	½	1	½	0	½	1	0	3,5	154	Masters
136	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2380	IND	1	½	½	½	1	0	½	4,0	87	Masters
139	FM	Prithu Gupta	2373	IND	½	½	1	1	½	½	½	4,5	35	Masters
149	IM	Hemant Sharma (Del)	2348	IND	½	0	1	1	½	½	½	4,0	79	Masters
159	IM	Padmini Rout	2325	IND	0	1	0	1	1	0	½	3,5	128	Masters
162	FM	Sadhwani Raunak	2321	IND	½	0	1	½	½	½	1	4,0	82	Masters
176	IM	Mohota Nisha	2269	IND	½	0	1	½	0	1	1	4,0	100	Masters
186	WIM	Nandhidhaa Pv	2238	IND	0	1	½	0	1	0	1	3,5	162	Masters
228	WFM	Cholleti Sahajasri	2083	IND	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	3,0	187	Masters
230	WIM	Tejaswini Sagar	2081	IND	½	½	½	1	0	0	½	3,0	174	Masters
247	WIM	Gagare Shalmali	2001	IND	½	0	0	0	1	½	0	2,0	241	Masters
254	CM	Dev Shah	1977	IND	½	0	0	0	0	1	0	1,5	262	Masters
268		Mayank Pal	1834	IND	½	0	0	0	½	½	½	2,0	252	Masters

Check complete results of Indians here

Ranking after round 7

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1
1	3	GM	Nakamura Hikaru	USA	2781	6,0	2891
2	16	GM	Howell David W L	ENG	2682	6,0	2876
3	38	GM	Antipov Mikhail Al.	RUS	2588	5,5	2814
4	2	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	FRA	2793	5,5	2758
5	47	GM	Moussard Jules	FRA	2571	5,5	2748
6	10	GM	Wang Hao	CHN	2711	5,5	2737
7	1	GM	Aronian Levon	ARM	2797	5,5	2730
8	12	GM	Rapport Richard	HUN	2700	5,5	2722
9	33	GM	Oparin Grigoriy	RUS	2607	5,5	2715
10	15	GM	Dubov Daniil	RUS	2694	5,5	2654
11	30	GM	Gledura Benjamin	HUN	2612	5,0	2782
12	9	GM	Duda Jan-Krzysztof	POL	2724	5,0	2713
13	24	GM	Grandelius Nils	SWE	2647	5,0	2699
14	31	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2610	5,0	2684
15	11	GM	Adams Michael	ENG	2709	5,0	2670
16	19	GM	Sutovsky Emil	ISR	2673	5,0	2660
17	4	GM	Navara David	CZE	2749	5,0	2658
	7	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	RUS	2732	5,0	2658
19	8	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily	UKR	2726	5,0	2654
	49	FM	Esipenko Andrey	RUS	2571	5,0	2654

Previous report:

Indians have a ball!