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Delhi and 48 hours of fun with Jacob!

by Sagar Shah - 07/04/2017

Jacob Aagaard was in India for his book tour. After Mumbai and Ahmedabad, the attention now shifted to the capital city of Delhi. Apart from having the two mandatory trainings in the morning, Delhi was the only city to have two open sessions in the evening. Many strong players attended it, including GM Abhijeet Gupta, as Jacob entertained and taught the audience with his knowledge wit and humour. Not to forget we also made him sing a song! A huge illustrated report!

The only time Jacob Aagaard had been in Asia was just a few months ago in Tehran when he was the second of Sabina Foisor at the Women's World Championship 2017. Little had he imagined that he would be spending nearly ten days in one of the largest Asian countries, visiting five cities! Jacob's trip in India began from Mumbai and continued to Ahmedabad. It was now time to move towards the capital city of Delhi.

 

Read the report on Mumbai leg of the trip

The Ahmedabad leg of the trip 

The 20 minute Delhi test

Before we tell you what transpired in Delhi. Here are three positions for you along with time that is to be dedicated for each position.

White to play. Take five minutes.

Assess the various options at Black's disposal and choose the best move. Black to play. 10 minutes.

This is an easy one. White to play. With what would you recapture on d5. Five minutes.

Welcome to Delhi!

The Jacob Aagaard training sessions were held on the 30th and 31st of March in Delhi at the Rathi Towers

Mr. Rathi, grandfather of chess player Devanshi Rathi, graciously let us use his premises for the chess lectures

The opening ceremony is done and Jacob's says his golden words, "Let's get on to chess!"

India's famous trainer and commentator IM Vishal Sareen organized the event in Delhi

The setting of the three hour morning session

Jacob's general way of functioning at such lectures is to explain a concept in detail, show illustrative examples and then give sheets of six positions to the students to solve. In this way a concept that was taught with theory becomes a part of the student by means of practical exercises. 

 

The other interesting part is that whenever the sheets are distributed to the students they have to write the answer compulsorily next to the position. Jacob, then moves around the classroom and checks the answers giving feedback to the students. In this way he is able to give personal attention and clarify the themes which might not be clear to some students. 

Lunch with Jacob where you analyze positions and ideas was a dream come true for many players!

That was a pretty long variation to digest! The paper dosa!

GMs Abhijeet Gupta and Sahaj Grover joined in for the evening session. Also in the picture is Sahaj's mother Sangeeta Grover.

The open lecture in the evening dealt with the important concept of dynamic strategic concept

Jacob showed his favourite game against Pallesen from Taastrup 2002. It is a game that is annotated in great depth in the upcoming book "Thinking Inside the Box." It is surely an amazing game and you can see the great depth of annotations in Jacob's book.

There was great excitement in the crowd, seeing the superb sacrifices!

Even the grandmasters had something to learn

Abhijeet Gupta on his learning experience from the Jacob sessions

Amruta helped the visually challenged boys by dictating the moves

This boys are being helped by Devanshi Rathi. With the project checkmate, Devanshi has been doing some phenomenal work helping the blind players become better at the game. A true hero.

Delhi's famous trainer G.B. Joshi and the upcoming talent Aradhya Garg discuss a few things with Jacob after the session

We got to know that Jacob is a good guitar player! Of course, we were not going to let him off the hook without playing a tune!

Little Miss Rain is Jacob's very own composition!

Jacob with the BMW is clearly happy!

But Vishal ensured that the Scot didn't have all the fun in Delhi!

The group picture at Delhi!

The Delhi Dynamite team at the Pro Chess League

ChessBase India correspondent Jitendra Choudhary with Jacob!

Solutions:

Position 1

[Event "Moscow RUS"]
[Site "Moscow RUS"]
[Date "2016.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Catalan analysis"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "Sagar,Shah"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "4q1k1/5ppp/5n2/1p2p3/3B4/3Q2P1/rP2PP1P/2R3K1 w - - 0 25"]
[PlyCount "3"]
[EventDate "2016.03.01"]
25. Bxe5 $1 (25. Qf5 Nd7 26. Bxe5 g6 27. Qb1 Ra8 28. Bc3 Qxe2 $14) 25... Qxe5
26. Qd5 $3 1-0

Position 2

[Event "FIDE World Cup 2013"]
[Site "Tromso NOR"]
[Date "2013.08.16"]
[Round "2.3"]
[White "Lysyj, Igor"]
[Black "Aronian, Levon"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D38"]
[WhiteElo "2648"]
[BlackElo "2813"]
[Annotator "Elimination"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "2b5/5p2/p4P1p/3k4/1r6/3N4/6P1/2R3K1 b - - 0 43"]
[PlyCount "15"]
[EventDate "2013.08.11"]
[WhiteTeam "Montenegro"]
[BlackTeam "Montenegro"]
[WhiteTeamCountry "MNE"]
[BlackTeamCountry "MNE"]
43... Rc4 $2 {This is the most natural move, but it doesn't win.} (43... Rb8 $1
{This looks passive, but is the correct move. The rook goes behind the a-pawn
and powers it forward.} 44. Rc7 Ke6 45. Rc6+ Kf5 $19) 44. Rxc4 Kxc4 45. Ne5+
Kd5 46. Nxf7 a5 47. Ne5 $2 (47. Nxh6 $1 {A key move! The knight will wriggle
out from f5.} Be6 48. Nf5 $1 a4 49. Ne3+ $11 {The knight joins in to stop the
rook pawn.} Kd4 50. Nc2+ Kc3 51. Na3 Kb3 52. Nb5 Kb4 53. Nd4 Bf7 54. Nc2+ Kb3
55. Nd4+ $11) 47... Be6 48. Nd3 a4 49. Kf2 a3 50. Nc1 Ke5 0-1

 

Position 3

[Event "FIDE World Cup 2013"]
[Site "Tromso NOR"]
[Date "2013.08.20"]
[Round "4.4"]
[White "Le, Quang Liem"]
[Black "Svidler, Peter"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A31"]
[Annotator "Comparison"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "2rr4/pp3kb1/2n5/3bPpp1/4P3/2B3P1/PP4B1/1K1R3R w - - 0 23"]
[PlyCount "32"]
[EventDate "2013.08.11"]
[WhiteTeam "Montenegro"]
[BlackTeam "Montenegro"]
[WhiteTeamCountry "MNE"]
[BlackTeamCountry "MNE"]
23. exd5 $6 (23. Rxd5 $1 Rxd5 (23... Bxe5 24. Rxe5 Nxe5 25. Bxe5 Re8 26. Bc3
fxe4 27. Bh3 $18) 24. e6+ $1 $18) 23... Nxe5 $1 24. Rh7 Rxc3 25. bxc3 Kg6 $16
26. Rhh1 Bf8 27. Rde1 Bd6 28. Kc2 g4 29. Re3 Rc8 30. Bf1 Rc5 31. Rh8 Rxd5 32.
Rd8 Kf6 33. Kb3 Bc5 34. Rxd5 Bxe3 35. Rd6+ Ke7 36. Rd5 Kf6 37. Rd6+ Ke7 38. Rd5
Kf6 1/2-1/2

 

Hope you were able to survive these positions...

...and not blown over!

Hotel Tivoli where Jacob was given accommodation was an amazing property. A huge thanks to the entire organsing team of Vishal Sareen, Delhi Chess, Nandita Rathi and Manicka Agarwal.

It was now time for the city of Joy - Kolkata!