KIIT R05+06: The story of two brilliant combinations!

by Sagar Shah - 30/05/2017

Chess like music, like love has the power to make man happy! And the chess that was on show at rounds five and six of the KIIT International Open 2017 in Bhubaneshwar was simply delightful. Of course, there were many excellent games played, but two combinations that stood out, were the ones executed by a 42-year-old experienced Bangladeshi grandmaster, and other by a 10-year-old talent from Mumbai. Well, what can we say, Caissa doesn't really care for the age, only good moves!

GM Ziaur Rahman is the sole leader with 5.5/6

Double rounds are always exciting. A lot of things happen in one day and often the fate of a tournament is decided by it. The fifth and sixth rounds of the KIIT International Open in Bhubaneshwar took place on the 29th of May. And although we cannot say that we can clearly see the winner of the tournament, we finally have a sole leader - GM Ziaur Rahman with 5.5/6. But before we go into details of what happened in the games, let's have a look at two beautiful combinations of the day. One was played by the experienced maestro from Bangladesh and other by the little master from Mumbai!

The beauty of chess is that age doesn't matter. On one hand you had 42-year-old Ziaur Rahman who blew his opponent away with a nice idea. On the other you had 10-year-old Aditya Mittal whose combination is worthy of entering any attacking manual!

Sayantan Das - Ziaur Rahman, round 6

Sayantan has just played his knight to a4. Of course he calculated all the queen retreats, but what was it that he had not seen?

[Event "10th KiiT International Chess Festival -"]
[Site "KiiT University, Patia, Bhuban"]
[Date "2017.05.29"]
[Round "6.1"]
[White "Das, Sayantan"]
[Black "Rahman, Ziaur"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B15"]
[WhiteElo "2396"]
[BlackElo "2526"]
[Annotator "Sagar Shah"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "5rk1/pp1np1bp/1qp3p1/3pP3/3P4/2NBQ3/PPP3PP/1R4K1 w - - 0 16"]
[PlyCount "14"]
[EventDate "2017.05.26"]
[EventRounds "10"]
[EventCountry "IND"]

16. Na4 {[%cal Gc3a4] Of course when you make a move like you are looking
forward to your opponent moving his queen. Imagine your horror when he touches
the bishop instead!} Bh6 $1 {I don't think Sayantan missed this move. The real
jolt comes two moves later. But in any case we must give credit to Ziaur
Rahman for being tactically so alert.} 17. Qxh6 Qxd4+ 18. Kh1 {Well taking on
a4 is surely an idea. But then White just chops off on g6 with his bishop and
Black is in trouble. So what was it that Ziaur hand in mind?} Nxe5 $3 {Of
course this was the idea! Very easy to miss. The knight threatens Ng4 and the
knight on a4 is still hanging!} (18... Qxa4 19. Bxg6 hxg6 20. Qxg6+ Kh8 21.
Qh6+ Kg8 22. Qe6+ Rf7 23. Qxd7 (23. Rf1 $2 Nxe5 $19) 23... Qxc2 24. Rg1 $13)
19. Bxg6 {It was already very difficult to give any advice.} (19. Qg5 $5 Nxd3
20. cxd3 Qxa4 21. Qxe7 Qf4 $17 {Black is clearly better. But White can fight
on for a few moves.}) 19... Nxg6 $19 20. Nc3 Qf2 21. h3 Qxc2 22. Qe3 e5 {
Black is two pawns up, Sayantan decided to call it a day!} 0-1

You have to agree that ...Nxe5 that was executed by Ziaur Rahman was not so easy to see. Now we move on to the second beautiful combination of the day! But first, try if you can match the skills of a 10-year-old prodigy!

Aditya Mittal - Niaz Murshed, round six

Niaz Murshed has just moved his knight from d7 to b6. How should White continue? Mind you, even the computer doesn't find this idea easily!

Solution:

The correct solution is the stunningly brilliant 17.Bf6!! The king on g8 is lonely, so why not invite it to the party! A party of white attackers! And also the rook is joining in via c5. Great job by the 10-year-old boy to find this excellent combination.

[Event "10th KiiT International Chess Festival -"]
[Site "KiiT University, Patia, Bhuban"]
[Date "2017.05.29"]
[Round "6.17"]
[White "Aditya, Mittal"]
[Black "Murshed, Niaz"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D38"]
[WhiteElo "2211"]
[BlackElo "2423"]
[Annotator "Sagar Shah"]
[PlyCount "53"]
[EventDate "2017.05.26"]
[EventRounds "10"]
[EventCountry "IND"]

{Let's check this game right from the first move because it is quite
interesting.} 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 {A mixture of the QGD and the
Ragozin.} 4. Nf3 Nf6 {Now we have a proper Ragozin.} 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 {
Aditya goes for the main line.} Nbd7 7. e3 c5 8. Be2 Qa5 9. O-O {White has
just developed normally. No real complications, got his king safely castled.}
Bxc3 10. bxc3 Ne4 {Because Black has not played c5-c4, White does it now.} (
10... c4 {is the main move here. The line might go something like} 11. Qc2 (11.
Nd2 {is an interesting gambit worth looking into.}) 11... Ne4 12. Rac1 Nb6 13.
Bf4 O-O {with a complex position.}) 11. c4 Nc3 12. Qc2 Nxe2+ 13. Qxe2 dxc4 14.
Qxc4 cxd4 15. Qxd4 O-O {This is a normal position and has been reached in five
games before. It should be slighly better for White already.} 16. Rac1 $14 Nb6
$4 {[%cal Gd7b6] Not so easy to see at first, what exactly is wrong with this
move, but 10-year-old Aditya Mittal had his brain switched on. He looked at
the black king on g8, the lonely king on g8 and it was enough for him to make
his next move!} (16... f6 {is usgly but seems like a move that keeps Black in
the game.}) 17. Bf6 $3 {[%csl Rg8][%cal Gg5f6] A beautiful concept! A gift
that cannot be declined.} gxf6 (17... g6 18. Bg7 $1 Re8 19. Bh6 $18) 18. Rc5 $1
Qa3 (18... Qxa2 {might have been more staunch, but it doesn't change the
evaluation of the position.}) 19. Rh5 {Qxf6 is the big threat now.} Re8 (19...
Qe7 20. Qh4 $18) 20. Qxf6 Re6 21. Rg5+ Kf8 22. Qg7+ (22. Qh8+ Ke7 23. Rg8 {
would have been the cleanest. But it's never easy to finish off such attacks
with precision.}) 22... Ke8 23. Nd4 Rg6 24. Re5+ Be6 25. Qxh7 Qd6 $6 (25... Rc8
{And it is still everything to play for.}) 26. f4 $1 {A strong move cementing
the central clump of white pieces.} Rf6 {This turns out to be a huge blunder.}
27. Qh8+ {Game over.} (27. Qh8+ Ke7 28. Qh4 $18 {And now Nf5+ is unstoppable
and the f6 rook cannot be saved!}) 1-0

Image result for Aditya Mittal chessbase india

10-year-old Aditya Mittal is not just an excellent player (as the game above shows), but also a high class annotator. He has analyzed many of the games for the articles on ChessBase India. As Botvinnik used to say, analyzing your own games and that of other masters and publishing them is the right way to improve at chess. Because when you publish your analysis you get critical feedback from the readers. In case you would like to get a taste of Aditya analyzing skills, check out this article where he talks about the game Aronian vs Rapport from Tata Steel 2017.

R.R.Laxman and Levon Babujian have a very similar built. They are both grandmasters with similar rating and both had worn blue coloured shirts! No wonder the game of equals ended in a draw on board two. But it was not without excitement!

In this video you get to see how Laxman who has nearly 40 minutes is so quick to move, while Babujian who is down to his last three minutes is playing it easy. You can learn a lot about psychology and putting pressure on your opponent through this video.

Sai Krishna G.V. did a commendable job of holding Farrukh Amonatov to a draw

After two draws in rounds two and three Adam Tukhaev is back with three wins. He is now on 5.0/6. He was able to demolish CRG Krishna's king from the white side of the French Defence.

A short interview with GM Debashis Das who is currently on 5.0/6. Debashis talks about his aim in the tournament, whether he is a professional player and what his future plans are.

Look at the passion of this 80-year-old man. After finishing his game he stood right next to the battle going on between Nitin and Karthik and tried to get to grips with all that was happening.

Great spirit shown by Rathanvel V.S. who is playing with a fractured hand. In the game, however, his opponent Vikramjit Singh showed no mercy and won with a fine attack.

Srijit Paul played a fine game to beat P. Iniyan

IM Ravi Teja was able to overcome his state mate IM Chakravarthi Reddy

Four queens staring at each other! Now, that doesn't happen every other day! Mohammad Fahad (white) took the queen on b2 and Raghunandan took the queen on c7! Later the game ended in a draw!

Local girl Saina Salonika is on 3.5/6

A surprise visitor to the tournament hall was Mr.bh6 (his playchess id). Orissa's soon-to-be grandmaster Swayams Mishra.

Rank after Round 6

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	4	GM	Rahman Ziaur		BAN	2526	BAN	5,5	0,0	20,5	23,5
2	21		Sidhant Mohapatra		IND	2393	ODI	5,0	0,0	21,0	24,5
3	16	GM	Laxman R.R.		IND	2417	TN	5,0	0,0	20,5	22,5
4	12	GM	Reefat Bin-Sattar		BAN	2437	BAN	5,0	0,0	20,0	22,5
5	55		Singh S. Vikramjit		IND	2213	MANP	5,0	0,0	19,5	22,5
6	10	GM	Babujian Levon		ARM	2438	ARM	5,0	0,0	19,5	22,0
7	14	IM	Nitin S.		IND	2426	TN	5,0	0,0	19,5	22,0
8	27	IM	Ravi Teja S.		IND	2369	AP	5,0	0,0	19,5	22,0
9	7	GM	Nguyen Duc Hoa		VIE	2481	VIE	5,0	0,0	19,0	22,0
10	29		Navalgund Niranjan		IND	2351	TN	5,0	0,0	18,0	20,5
11	3	GM	Tukhaev Adam		UKR	2557	UKR	5,0	0,0	18,0	20,0
12	35	FM	Karthik Venkataraman		IND	2317	TN	5,0	0,0	18,0	20,0
13	5	GM	Debashis Das		IND	2496	ODI	5,0	0,0	15,0	16,5

Complete rankings

With 3.5/6 both Nagpur girls Divya and Mrudul are hunting for their maiden WIM norms

Two heros of yesteryears - IM Ravi Hegde and IM Sekhar Sahu

Having food with your friends in the air-conditioned hall and watching the Champion's trophy is an ideal way to unwind!

High quality food is provided to all the participants. The cost is included in the entry fee.

It's always nice to see a chess family. Tarun and Trisha Kanyamarala with their father.

Round 7 on 2017/05/30 at 15:00 hrs

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	4	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2526	5½		5	GM	Debashis Das	2496	5
2	21		Sidhant Mohapatra	2393	5		5	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2557	3
3	27	IM	Ravi Teja S.	2369	5		5	GM	Nguyen Duc Hoa	2481	7
4	10	GM	Babujian Levon	2438	5		5	IM	Nitin S.	2426	14
5	29		Navalgund Niranjan	2351	5		5	GM	Reefat Bin-Sattar	2437	12
6	35	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2317	5		5	GM	Laxman R.R.	2417	16
7	55		Singh S. Vikramjit	2213	5		4½		Saravana Krishnan P.	2345	30
8	1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2632	4½		4½	FM	Mitrabha Guha	2299	40
9	2	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2569	4½		4½	GM	Ziatdinov Raset	2291	42
10	6	GM	Deviatkin Andrei	2481	4½		4½		Akash Pc Iyer	2282	45

Complete pairings of round 7

Watch the games live on the ChessBase India website at 15.00 hours

Previous reports on KIIT International 2017:

10th KIIT International about to begin

01: Chandreyee Hajra stuns Padmini Rout

02+03: Ten players on perfect score

04: CRG Krishna shows his class; beats the top seed