Asian Individual 01-03: Hiccups for the Indian challengers

Asian Individual 01-03: Hiccups for the Indian challengers

Photos by Eugeny Smolnikov

For Abhijeet Gupta, it was one nerve-wracking of a race in the Sicilian. He was locked in battle with an unheralded Chinese and while his army raced to get the white King tucked away on the queenside, his opponent broke first on the kingside. White's pieces poured in and Gupta had nothing but a resignation to offer. Then in the second round, Adhiban fell. Vidit too lost, in the third round.

Most of the great cities of the world are characterised by the inherent social and demographic conflicts that are ingrained in them. It is often starkly visible in the form of the old relics and customs and the modern ways that succeeded them, without really killing their predecessors. Tashkent qualifies — a part of it is a new-age metropolis, the most happening place in Uzbekistan, a part of it a leafy Soviet-era city, and also, a part of it is a home away from home represented by sprawling greenery.

The Uzbekistan Chess Federation on behalf of Asian Chess Federation and FIDE is hosting the Asian Continental Chess Championships (Open and Women’s) from 25 May — 5 June 2016 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The tournament is a nine-round-swiss with the time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

With all of our youthful and hungry top grandmasters participating, the tournament was all set for one of the Indians take center-stage. Curiously, the fifth to ninth seeds of the tournament were Adhiban, Vidit, Ganguly, Gupta and Sethuraman, and going into the tournament, each of them had high expectations from themselves. The question is: how far would their wind blow?

With 2.5/3, grandmasters Ganguly, Chithambaram, Lalith Babu and Sethuraman are in close pursuit of the leaders — Wen Yang, Wei Yi, Le Quang Liem ad Ehsan Ghaem Maghami — while Adhiban, Sethu and Gupta can easily make a comeback from 2.0/3. The most crucial game in the fourth round for the Indians may be Lalith's clash with the Uzbek No. 1 GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Indian Pairings for Round 04:

Women's section:

Bhakti has a very good chance to fight for the top spot if she manages to beat the top seed IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (2459), while the other Indians are still in the race. Well begun is half done — and you can interpret 'half done' both ways.

Indian Pairings for Round 04:

Links:

Official Website

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