Delhi 04: Going down in flames

by Priyadarshan Banjan - 12/01/2016

The fourth round did not see earth-shattering upsets; but, there was no dearth of surprising results. Although many of our talented players lost, some did manage to create a flutter. Meanwhile, the Category-B tournament that ends today is poised for a bloody finish! An illustrated report.

Delhi 04: Going down in flames

"We in FIDE joke that Indian chessplayers should be given two-hundred points over their rating to show their real strength," summarized Mr. Bharat Singh Chauhan, as he presided over the 14th Delhi Open 2016, witnessing young Indians display character and ability while taking on their higher-rated opponents.

The fourth round did not see earth-shattering upsets; but, there was no dearth of surprising results. Although many of our talented players lost, some did manage to create a flutter:

Russian GM Artur Gabrielian (2542) was slowly clawing back to contention after a first round draw; however,...

...Pradeep Kumar (2302) played a fine game with black, penetrating with his king in the end, to win in style.

The charging points in my hotel room stopped working all of a sudden, leaving me with no means to prepare after my laptop went off!

[Event "Delhi Open"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2016.01.11"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Arthur , Gabrielian"]
[Black "RA.Pradeep, Kumar"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B31"]
[WhiteElo "2545"]
[BlackElo "2302"]
[Annotator "Pradeep Kumar,RA"]
[PlyCount "88"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. d3 Bg7 6. h3 Nf6 7. Nc3 O-O 8.
Be3 Nd7 9. Qd2 Re8 10. O-O e5 11. Nh2 Qe7 12. Bg5 Qd6 13. Ng4 f5 14. Nh2 (14.
Nh6+ Bxh6 15. Bxh6 f4 16. g3 Nf8 $11) 14... f4 15. f3 Bf6 16. Bxf6 Nxf6 17. Ne2
Be6 18. a3 a5 19. Kh1 Re7 20. Rfe1 g5 21. Qc3 b6 22. Rg1 Nh5 23. Rab1 a4 24.
Qe1 c4 25. dxc4 Bxc4 26. g4 Ng7 27. Rg2 Rd7 28. Nc3 Ne6 29. Rd1 Nd4 30. h4 b5
31. hxg5 Qg6 32. Qh4 Rad8 33. Rgd2 Rd6 34. Qh5 Kf7 35. Kg2 Ke7 36. Kf2 Nxc2 37.
Rxd6 Rxd6 38. Rxd6 Kxd6 39. Nf1 Kc5 40. Qxg6 hxg6 41. Nd2 Kd4 42. Ndb1 Kd3 43.
Nd1 Ne3 44. Nbc3 Kd2 0-1

While the top seed GM Boris Grachev (2652) of Russia is on 3.5/4, his countrymates GM Ivan Popov (2650), GM Anton Demchenko (2596) and Ukraine's Vitaly Sivuk (2566) share the lead with 4.0/4. [See the photos from left to right]

A handful of our talented players went down in flames against their grandmaster opponents, but not without a fight!

Ukrainian GM Vitaliy Bernadskiy (2546) could not make progress against...

...Andhra Pradesh's Dhulipalla Prasad Chandra (2248), who continued his fine run by playing solidly.

Mehar Chinna Reddy (2293) won his game after he managed to surprise...

... IM N. Srinath (2478), unsurprisingly because he chose the wrong opponent to experiment against.

GM Vladimir Belous (2559) was held to a draw by a tiny kid from Kerala.

With mere seconds left on the clock, White made an aesthetically pleasing move to hold this position.

Maybe this is the reason he plays chess?

GM Sipke Ernst (2536) appeared amused as, despite his best efforts, he could not break...

... Srijit Paul (2259) of West Bengal who played 'overambitiously drawish' chess.

WFM Srija Seshadri (2092) of Tamil Nadu held IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh (2414)

After defeating a grandmaster for the first time in the second round, Vinayak Kulkarni (2042) held IM G. Akash (2404) in the fourth round.

Pairings for Round 05:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	2	GM	Popov Ivan	2650	4		4	GM	Demchenko Anton	2596	4
2	6	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2566	4		3½	GM	Grachev Boris	2652	1
3	27	GM	Sriram Jha	2416	3½		3½	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2581	5
4	29	IM	Das Sayantan	2411	3½		3½	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2556	9
5	47		Pradeep Kumar R A	2302	3½		3½	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2552	11
6	12	GM	Bernadskiy Vitaliy	2546	3½		3½	FM	Mehar Chinna Reddy C.H.	2293	49
7	61		Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad	2248	3½		3½	GM	Czebe Attila	2466	21
8	36		Harsha Bharathakoti	2362	3		3	GM	David Alberto	2597	3
9	37	IM	Palit Somak	2357	3		3	GM	Mozharov Mikhail	2559	7
10	10	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2553	3		3	FM	Thakur Akash	2341	39

View the complete pairing list here.

Complete results of Round 04.

Download important Round 01-04 games in PGN.

Watch the games live on Playchess!

Category-B Open

The B-category tournament, which ends today, is poised for an exciting finish as six players are tied for 8.0/9! The winner takes home Rs. 1.5 lakhs and a complimentary ChessBase 13 from ChessBase India. It will be very interesting to see if the players decide to play it safe or go for each other's throats in the final round.

Find the Round 10 pairings and other information here.

Afghanistan's Amini Habibullah (1976) was comfortably leading with 8.0/8 until he was defeated by...

...Kerala's Mohammed Dilshad (1996)

Meanwhile, a game on the 303rd board (!) crossed the 240 move mark, as the players entered their fourth scoresheet!

Photos for ChessBase India