Super performance by Sethu and Hari

by Sagar Shah - 05/02/2016

Hikaru Nakamura won the Gibraltar Masters 2016 in great style. For Indians it was a highly successful event as 16 out of the 21 players, we had out there, increased their rating. Sethuraman was the best performer finishing fourth, while Harikrishna settled for fifth. We will soon bring you a final detailed report with games, moments and much more from Gibraltar, as of now enjoy a quickie.

Pictures by Sophie Triay and John Saunders

The Gibraltar Masters 2016 came to an end on the 4th of February 2016. After a hard fought battle in the playoffs it was Nakamura who emerged victorious against MVL.

Hikaru Nakamura successfully defended his title at the Gibraltar Masters by winning the Armageddon game

As for the Indians the tournament was a highly successful one. Sethuraman and Harikrishna scored 7.5/10 and finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Sethuraman employed the Open Spanish and drew his final round game against Etienne Bacrot

One of the best result for Sethu was his ninth round win against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. What is truly amazing is the fact that Sethuraman lost to Harikrishna in the fifth round and yet finished above him in the final standings! Just goes to show what an aggressive and an ambitious player he really is.

Harikrishna played a fine event, remaining unbeaten and finishing fifth

It is truly astonishing how Harikrishna is able to increase his rating in almost every tournament he plays in spite of having such a mammoth Elo of 2755. In this event he gained 3.5 Elo points. At one point it seemed as if he would overtake Anand and become India number one on the live rating list, but Anand's two wins in the end kept the status quo. As of now Anand is on 2762 while Harikrishna is on 2756.

Harikrishna vs Li Chao ended in a draw in the final round

Although the result is excellent, Harikrishna must be kicking himself for not being able to make the best use of the highly favourable position in the final round against Li Chao. He held an advantage almost throughout the game. A win would have given him the opportunity to fight it out with MVL and Nakmura in the playoffs. In the end he had to settle for the fifth place.

[Event "Gibraltar Masters 2016"]
[Site "Caleta ENG"]
[Date "2016.02.04"]
[Round "10.3"]
[White "Harikrishna, Pentala"]
[Black "Li, Chao b"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C42"]
[WhiteElo "2755"]
[BlackElo "2751"]
[PlyCount "133"]
[EventDate "2016.01.26"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Be7 7. O-O Nc6 8.
Nbd2 Bf5 9. Re1 Nd6 10. Nf1 O-O 11. Bf4 Qc8 12. c3 Rd8 13. Ne3 Be6 14. Ng5 Bxg5
15. Bxg5 f6 16. Bf4 Ne7 17. Qh5 Ne4 18. Qe2 Ng6 19. Bg3 c6 20. Qc2 Re8 21. Bxe4
dxe4 22. Qxe4 Bxa2 23. Qf3 Bf7 24. h4 Ne7 25. c4 Qd7 26. Red1 Red8 27. d5 cxd5
28. cxd5 Qb5 29. d6 Nc6 30. Nf5 Be6 31. Ne7+ Nxe7 32. dxe7 Rxd1+ 33. Rxd1 Re8
34. Rd8 Kf7 35. Bd6 a5 36. Qg3 a4 37. Ba3 Qc6 38. Qe3 Bd5 39. Qd2 Be6 40. Qf4
h5 41. Qd2 Qb5 42. Qd1 Kg8 43. Qc2 Bf7 44. Qe4 Qc6 45. Qxc6 bxc6 46. f4 Kh7 47.
f5 g6 48. Kf2 gxf5 49. Ke3 Kg7 50. Kf4 Bg6 51. Rd4 Rg8 52. Rd6 Be8 53. Kxf5
Bg6+ 54. Ke6 Bf7+ 55. Kd7 Be8+ 56. Kd8 Kf7 57. Bc5 Rxg2 58. Bd4 Rg6 59. Bc3 c5
60. Rd5 Rg8 61. Rxh5 Bb5+ 62. Kc7 Kxe7 63. Rf5 Be8 64. Rxf6 a3 65. Ra6 axb2 66.
Bxb2 Rg6 67. Rxg6 1/2-1/2

Other Indians who did exceedingly well were Abhijeet Gupta who finished tenth gaining 15 Elo points. Harika who also gained 15 Elo and scored a very respectable 6.0/10. A very surprising piece of statistic: out of the 21 Indians out there in Gibraltar only five lost rating points. Rest 16 all went back home with a gain. This shows that Gibraltar was a successful event for the Indian fans. However, they all would have wished that Vishy Anand would have performed better.

Anand finished the event with two fine wins, but the damage had already been done. He lost 21 Elo points and ended up on the 41st position.

We wish Anand a speedy recovery from this event and hope that he will be back with a bang at the Zurich Masters in February and the Candidates 2016 in March.

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds (7 points and above]

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	2	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	FRA	2785	8,0	2838	8	7,32	0,68	10	6,8
2	1	GM	Nakamura Hikaru	USA	2787	8,0	2811	8	7,66	0,34	10	3,4
3	11	GM	Bacrot Etienne	FRA	2697	7,5	2786	7	5,97	1,03	10	10,3
4	25	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	IND	2639	7,5	2781	7,5	5,56	1,94	10	19,4
5	4	GM	Harikrishna P.	IND	2755	7,5	2773	7,5	7,15	0,35	10	3,5
6	28	GM	Jones Gawain C B	ENG	2625	7,5	2730	7,5	6,08	1,42	10	14,2
7	5	GM	Li Chao B	CHN	2751	7,5	2721	7,5	7,63	-0,13	10	-1,3
8	22	GM	Sutovsky Emil	ISR	2647	7,5	2628	7,5	7,59	-0,09	10	-0,9
9	14	GM	Ragger Markus	AUT	2689	7,0	2737	7	6,24	0,76	10	7,6
10	32	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2613	7,0	2716	7	5,50	1,50	10	15,0
	35	GM	Maze Sebastien	FRA	2591	7,0	2716	6,5	4,81	1,69	10	16,9
12	7	GM	Jakovenko Dmitry	RUS	2732	7,0	2711	6,5	6,61	-0,11	10	-1,1
13	24	GM	Anton Guijarro David	ESP	2639	7,0	2706	7	5,93	1,07	10	10,7
14	18	GM	Bruzon Batista Lazaro	CUB	2666	7,0	2703	7	6,41	0,59	10	5,9
15	26	GM	Grandelius Nils	SWE	2635	7,0	2692	7	6,05	0,95	10	9,5
16	9	GM	Rapport Richard	HUN	2721	7,0	2682	7	7,36	-0,36	10	-3,6
17	47	GM	Muzychuk Anna	UKR	2537	7,0	2677	6,5	4,75	1,75	10	17,5
18	23	GM	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	IND	2642	7,0	2675	7	6,43	0,57	10	5,7
19	16	GM	Almasi Zoltan	HUN	2684	7,0	2662	7	7,19	-0,19	10	-1,9
20	30	GM	Edouard Romain	FRA	2617	7,0	2650	7	6,45	0,55	10	5,5
21	39	GM	Perez Ponsa Federico	ARG	2577	7,0	2628	7	6,20	0,80	10	8,0
22	10	GM	Fressinet Laurent	FRA	2700	7,0	2624	7	7,77	-0,77	10	-7,7
23	19	GM	Kamsky Gata	USA	2665	7,0	2612	7	7,53	-0,53	10	-5,3

Final results of all 257 players

Get the results and pairings specifically of only Indian players from chess-results website

Day's play by our very own Tania Sachdev

ChessBase India will bring a special round-up report on the Gibraltar Masters very soon.

Previous Reports:

Anand does a Carlsen!

27/01/2016 - At the Qatar Masters Open 2015 Magnus Carlsen drew his first round game against Nino Batsiashvili and went on to win the tournament. Anand has taken the first step in the right direction(!), by drawing his game against Szidonia Vajda rated 450 Elo points below him! We have an illustrated report from Gibraltar with game analysis, pictures and a special moment sent to us by Nisha Mohota.

Harika smashes Short!

29/01/2016 - The third round at the Gibraltar Masters turned out to be an excellent one for Indians. Harika was surely the performer of the day as she played a nearly flawless game against Nigel Short. Vishy Anand showed exactly why he was rated 340 points above his opponent and Aravindh Chithambaram once again impressed us with his imaginative attacking abilities. We also have a very nice blitz tournament report sent to us by IM Nisha Mohota from the venue!

Four Indians at top in Gibraltar

02/02/2016 - After seven rounds Anton Guijarro leads the super strong Gibraltar Chess festival with 6.0/7. Four Indians, Harikrishna, Sethuraman, Vidit and Abhijeet Gupta follow on the leader's heels with 5.5/7. Vishy Anand is currently languishing on 4.0/7 after he lost to Benjamin Gledura in the seventh round. We have game analysis and some selected pictures from the event.

Hari in a hurry!

03/02/2016 - Harikrishna played the London System against Vidit Gujrathi and was able to subdue him with some nice attacking moves. With this win, Hari moves into the leaders pack with 6.5/8. Sethuraman and Abhijeet Gupta follow him on six points. The reason why today can be a big day for chess in India is that Harikrishna has a chance to overtake Anand on the live Elo rating list. This and much more in our today's article from Gibraltar.

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Pts.	Rk.	K	rtg+/-	Group
3	GM	Anand Viswanathan	2784	IND	½	1	1	½	0	1	0	½	1	1	6,5	41	10	-21,90	Masters
4	GM	Harikrishna P.	2755	IND	1	½	1	1	1	½	½	1	½	½	7,5	5	10	3,50	Masters
21	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2660	IND	½	1	1	½	0	½	½	1	1	½	6,5	45	10	-14,10	Masters
23	GM	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	2642	IND	1	½	½	1	1	1	½	0	1	½	7,0	18	10	5,70	Masters
25	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	2639	IND	1	1	1	½	0	1	1	½	1	½	7,5	4	10	19,40	Masters
32	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2613	IND	1	1	½	1	1	½	½	½	0	1	7,0	10	10	15,00	Masters
36	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2583	IND	1	1	0	1	½	½	1	½	0	1	6,5	39	10	0,20	Masters
45	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2553	IND	1	1	½	0	½	1	1	1	½	0	6,5	30	10	12,80	Masters
51	GM	Gopal G.N.	2525	IND	1	½	1	½	½	1	0	½	1	0	6,0	55	10	8,30	Masters
53	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2518	IND	1	1	0	1	0	½	1	0	1	1	6,5	47	10	1,40	Masters
58	GM	Harika Dronavalli	2511	IND	1	1	1	½	½	0	½	0	½	1	6,0	50	10	15,10	Masters
59	GM	Sundararajan Kidambi	2508	IND	1	1	½	0	½	½	½	0	½	½	5,0	125	10	-12,70	Masters
65	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2500	IND	1	1	1	0	0	1	½	0	½	1	6,0	57	10	7,60	Masters
77	IM	Prasanna Raghuram Rao	2460	IND	1	0	1	½	0	1	1	0	1	0	5,5	92	10	-5,40	Masters
91	IM	Padmini Rout	2427	IND	1	½	½	1	½	½	1	0	0	½	5,5	73	10	15,40	Masters
104	IM	Satyapragyan Swayangsu	2410	IND	½	1	0	1	½	½	0	1	½	0	5,0	126	10	-0,80	Masters
115	IM	Anurag Mhamal	2387	IND	1	1	½	0	0	1	1	0	0	½	5,0	121	10	6,90	Masters
123		Siva Mahadevan	2370	IND	1	0	1	1	½	0	1	0	½	½	5,5	82	10	12,10	Masters
151	WIM	Pratyusha Bodda	2278	IND	0	1	½	½	0	½	1	½	0	1	5,0	137	20	5,00	Masters
163	IM	Mohota Nisha	2245	IND	0	1	½	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	4,5	155	10	8,80	Masters