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Gibraltar 05: Peace and War

by Aditya Pai - 29/01/2017

The biggest chess open in the world currently, the Gibraltar Masters, has reached the halfway mark. After four rounds of play, GM Ju Wenjun and ACP President, GM Emil Sutovsky were leading the tournament with a perfect score of 4.0/4. Their game ended in a tame draw. However, this was compensated by scintillating wins by Nakamura, Caruana and Topalov. For Indians Lalith Babu drew his game against Ivanchuk and Abhijeet Gupta has now scored four consecutive wins. We bring you an illustrated round five report.

Photos by John Saunders and Sophie Triay

As round five of the ten-round event began, Ju Wenjun was heading closer to reaching the 2600 rating mark and becoming the sixth woman in the history of the game to have reached that feat. With only three points to gain, she sat down to play against Sutovsky. Behind these two, a strong league of grandmasters including the likes of Mickey Adams, Hikaru Nakamura and MVL were roughing it out to catch them in the lead. There was blood anticipated over the chessboard.

Within the first twenty minutes of play game a disappointing result for the audiences.

To the disappointment of the crowd, Ju Wenjun agreed to a draw against Emil Sutovsky in just 15 moves of a Grunfeld Defence. Knowing that the spectators would be disappointed with the result, Emil Sutovsky went into the commentary room and explained to the commentators Simon Williams and Jovanka Houska that he felt bad about having taken a draw so early. He further explained that he might have ended in a worse position if he hadn’t taken the repetition at that point. Not to mention the fact that he was taken by surprise by Wenjun’s opening choice.

“The tournament situation sometimes dictates what you do” – Emil Sutovsky

What Wenjun had to say...

Although the top board game was a quick and disappointing draw, it sent a wave of motivation to the players trying to catch Wenjun and Sutovsky in the lead and there were quite a few decisive results on the top boards.

Hikaru Nakamura crushed the Venezuelan GM Eduardo Itturizaga Bonelli in just 28 moves of a Queen’s Indian Defence on board 3.

The board 4 encounter between Michael Adams and the Women’s World Champion Hou Yifan was a long tumultuous battle that ended in a victory for the English Grandmaster.

The Spaniard, David Anton Guijarro got the better of the former World Championship Challenger, GM Boris Gelfand after the Israeli Grandmaster made an inaccuracy one move before reaching the time control in an English Opening.

Fabiano Caruana had to fight a long arduous battle against Mikhail Antipov to secure victory in an Accelerated Dragon.

Performance of the Indian posse.

Round five brought mixed results for team India. Although GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly lost his game to the ex-Women’s World Champ, Antoaneta Stefanova, GM Abhijeet Gupta sealed his fourth win in a row. He is now back at the top after his first round upset against the German FM Frank Buchenau.

Sethuraman drew a complicated game against…
…the ultra-artistic Vadim Zvjaginsev
[Event "Gibraltar Masters 2017"]
[Site "Caleta ENG"]
[Date "2017.01.28"]
[Round "5.6"]
[White "Zvjaginsev, Vadim"]
[Black "Sethuraman, S.P."]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C24"]
[WhiteElo "2679"]
[BlackElo "2637"]
[Annotator "Sagar,Shah"]
[PlyCount "61"]
[EventDate "2017.01.24"]
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 Nc6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Nf3 d5 6. exd5 Nxd5 7. Bd2 Bxc3 8.
bxc3 Bg4 9. h3 Bh5 10. O-O O-O 11. g4 (11. Re1 f6 12. Bb3 Kh8 {The position
should be around even.}) 11... Bg6 12. Re1 Re8 13. a4 h6 14. a5 e4 15. dxe4
Bxe4 16. a6 $1 {I like this move. It softens up the c6 knight and makes the
next idea possible.} bxa6 17. Bg5 $5 {A very original move that launches a
discovered attack on the knight on d5. The threat now is to take on e4.} (17.
Bxh6 {doesn't work because of} Nb6 $1 $15 (17... gxh6 $2 18. Rxe4 $16)) 17...
Nf6 $1 {Sethuraman sidesteps the danger.} (17... hxg5 $2 18. Rxe4 $1 Rxe4 19.
Bxd5 $16 {White will recover the material with interest.}) 18. Qxd8 Raxd8 19.
Bxf6 gxf6 20. Nd4 Nxd4 21. cxd4 Rxd4 22. Bxa6 {The position is just equal.} Re5
23. c3 Rd8 24. f4 Re6 25. Bf1 Ra8 26. Bc4 Ree8 27. Ra6 Kg7 28. Rea1 f5 29. Rxa7
fxg4 30. hxg4 Rxa7 31. Rxa7 1/2-1/2

GM Lalith Babu is standing strong against the storm of elite GMs the Gibraltar Masters is throwing at him. This time he drew against Vassily Ivanchuk…

…who was caught musing around after the game.

Game of the day

There were quite a few grueling encounters in round five. But the one that stood out from the rest was Veselin Topalov’s game against Deac Bogdan-Daniel.

With the hope of reaching a solid position, Topalov chose to play the Catalan. But him being him, and him being awesome, the position turned wild in no time. In just 25 moves, Deac was on his knees!

[Event "Gibraltar Masters 2017"]
[Site "Caleta ENG"]
[Date "2017.01.28"]
[Round "5.12"]
[White "Topalov, Veselin"]
[Black "Deac, Bogdan-Daniel"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E04"]
[WhiteElo "2739"]
[BlackElo "2572"]
[Annotator "Sagar,Shah"]
[PlyCount "49"]
[EventDate "2017.01.24"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 Bd7 6. Ne5 Bc6 7. Nxc6 Nxc6 8.
e3 Qd7 9. O-O Rd8 10. Qe2 e5 11. Nc3 Be7 12. dxe5 Nxe5 13. Bxb7 Bb4 (13... O-O
{And Black has a fine position out of the opening.}) 14. Rd1 Nd3 15. e4 Bxc3
16. bxc3 Qb5 $1 {Deac is playing quite accurately.} 17. e5 Nd5 $6 (17... O-O $1
18. exf6 Qxb7 19. Qg4 g6 $17 {And Black is better. This should haveen
preferred by Deac.}) 18. Rb1 $1 Nxc3 $2 {The most natural move actually turns
out to be a blunder.} (18... Qc5 $1 $11) (18... Qxb1 19. Bc6+ Rd7 20. Bxd7+
Kxd7 21. Qg4+ $18) 19. Qf3 Qxe5 (19... Nxb1 20. Bc6+ $18) (19... Qxb1 20. Bc6+
Ke7 (20... Rd7 21. Bxd7+ Kxd7 22. Qg4+ $1 (22. Qxf7+ $2 Kc8 $19) 22... Ke7 (
22... Kc6 23. Qxc4+ $18) 23. Bg5+ f6 24. exf6+ gxf6 25. Rxb1 $18) 21. Bg5+ $18)
20. Qc6+ Kf8 21. Bb2 $1 Ne2+ 22. Kg2 c3 23. Ba3+ Kg8 24. Qe4 c2 25. Rxd3 {
A brilliant game by Veselin Topalov.} 1-0

 

Caption: Beh, I’m a bit too old for such positions he says.

Rank after Round 5

Rk. SNo   Name FED Rtg Pts.  TB1   TB2   TB3  w-we
1 28 GM Sutovsky Emil ISR 2628 4,5 16,5 9,5 14,25 1,22
  38 GM Ju Wenjun CHN 2583 4,5 16,5 9,5 14,25 1,40
3 5 GM Adams Michael ENG 2751 4,5 16,0 10,0 14,25 0,73
4 34 GM Lagarde Maxime FRA 2594 4,5 16,0 10,0 14,00 1,44
5 24 GM Anton Guijarro David ESP 2650 4,5 14,5 9,0 13,00 1,08
6 3 GM Nakamura Hikaru USA 2785 4,5 14,0 8,5 12,50 0,54
7 2 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2796 4,0 17,5 11,0 13,75 -0,03
8 15 GM Zvjaginsev Vadim RUS 2679 4,0 17,5 10,5 13,25 0,43
9 13 GM Cheparinov Ivan BUL 2689 4,0 16,5 10,0 13,00 0,25
10 8 GM Yu Yangyi CHN 2738 4,0 16,0 9,0 12,50 0,16

Round 6 on 2017/01/29 at 15.00

Bo. No.   Name FED Rtg Pts. Result Pts.   Name FED Rtg No.
1 3 GM Nakamura Hikaru USA 2785   GM Lagarde Maxime FRA 2594 34
2 5 GM Adams Michael ENG 2751   GM Ju Wenjun CHN 2583 38
3 28 GM Sutovsky Emil ISR 2628   GM Anton Guijarro David ESP 2650 24
4 16 GM Short Nigel D ENG 2675 4   4 GM Caruana Fabiano USA 2827 1
5 2 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2796 4   4 GM Gupta Abhijeet IND 2645 25

Player overview for IND

SNo   Name Rtg FED 1 2 3 4 5 Pts. Rk. Group
19 GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar 2657 IND ½ 1 1 ½ 0 3,0 69 Masters
25 GM Gupta Abhijeet 2645 IND 0 1 1 1 1 4,0 22 Masters
26 GM Sethuraman S.P. 2637 IND 1 1 ½ 1 ½ 4,0 12 Masters
37 GM Lalith Babu M R 2587 IND 1 0 1 1 ½ 3,5 50 Masters
40 GM Gopal G.N. 2579 IND 1 1 ½ 0 ½ 3,0 59 Masters
61 IM Aryan Chopra 2503 IND 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 3,0 87 Masters
72 GM Debashis Das 2472 IND 1 0 1 1 ½ 3,5 43 Masters
91 GM Sundararajan Kidambi 2420 IND 1 0 ½ ½ 1 3,0 100 Masters
92 IM Karavade Eesha 2418 IND 1 0 ½ ½ 0 2,0 168 Masters
115 WGM Soumya Swaminathan 2375 IND 1 0 1 0 1 3,0 101 Masters
124 IM Siva Mahadevan 2356 IND 0 1 ½ ½ 1 3,0 99 Masters
129   Kulkarni Rakesh 2344 IND 0 0 1 1 1 3,0 108 Masters
132 FM Rakesh Kumar Jena 2335 IND 0 1 1 0 0 2,0 169 Masters
141 IM Saravanan V. 2306 IND 0 1 0 0 1 2,0 171 Masters
154 WIM Pratyusha Bodda 2247 IND 1 0 0 1 0 2,0 167 Masters

Check out more details related to Indian players 

 

About the author

 

Aditya Pai is an ardent chess fan, avid reader, and a film lover. He has been an advertising copywriter and is currently pursuing a Master's in English Literature at the University of Mumbai. He loves all things German and is learning the language. He has also written scripts for experimental films.

 

 


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