Sharjah Masters: Adhiban and Sethu best among Indians

by Albert Silver - 12/04/2017

Sharjah Masters tournament attracted a fair number of strong grandmasters and talented youngsters from across the world, but the majority were from India. For most, it was a chance to play two successive tournaments (this event was followed by Dubai Open that ends today). Wang Hao of China was the winner, but two Indians—Adhiban and Sethuraman—took a share of the first prize pie.

Sharjah Masters: Adhiban and Sethu best among Indians

All photos by Maria Emelianova

Reporting the results barely does justice to just how tense the final round was. With six players tied for first, and four entering the final round tied for first, one imagines that it was hardly all about quick handshakes and scoresheet signing.

Video report of round nine by Daniel King

The one game between actual leaders was more a formality, and Wang Hao and Yuriy Kryvoruchko only made a half-hearted attempt, more seeing whether either was feeling frisky or not, before shaking hands after 28 moves in a virtually symmetrical position.

This left them both with 7.0/9, but also meant that should either Adhiban or Kravtsiv win their games, they might take sole lead themselves. That said, they were also playing black and both faced 2700 opponents, so the odds were in favor of this not happening.

Top seed Radoslaw Wojtaszek fought valiantly but was unable to get into full gear

Top seed Wojtaszek got an edge and was certainly playing for a win since with 6.0/8 he absolutely needed the full point to have a chance for a place on the podium. This was good news for Adhiban, playing black since it meant the game would be a live one with chances of his own. With 6.5/8, a draw would put him on parity with the leaders, while a win could mean sole first. The Indian ended up worse for a good part of the game, so when he drew it, it was not an unhappy result for him.

Baskaran Adhiban managed to take second in the end

Finally came Naiditsch with 6.0/8 and Kravtsiv with 6.5/8, in a similar strategical situation as Wojtaszek and Adhiban. The Ukrainian played an excellent game and after a long battle reached a completely won opposite-colored bishop ending. The rolling phalanx of pawns should have been a no-brainer, but instead, the nerves and prospect of sole gold (by then he knew the results of his rival co-leaders) caused him to crack, and let Naiditsch escape with a nice finesse.

Arkadij Naiditsch vs Martyn Kravtsiv

[Event "1st Sharjah Masters 2017"] [Site "Sharjah"] [Date "2017.03.31"] [Round "9"] [White "Naiditsch, Arkadij"] [Black "Kravtsiv, Martyn"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "D02"] [WhiteElo "2702"] [BlackElo "2641"] [Annotator "A. Silver"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "8/8/1B5p/1b2pk2/5ppP/8/P4P2/6K1 w - - 0 48"] [PlyCount "40"] [EventDate "2017.??.??"] 48. a3 {Black has a crushing advantage, and the win should be fairly straightforward.} g3 $2 {Almost anything was better than this howler.} ({ The most obvious choice was} 48... h5 49. Kh2 Ke4 50. Bc7 g3+ $1 {with an important difference from the game:} 51. fxg3 f3 52. Bb6 Kd3 53. Kg1 Ke2) 49. fxg3 $17 fxg3 50. h5 $1 {A very fine move that effectively saves the half point now.} Kf4 ({If Black were to play} 50... Kg5 {with the intention of capturing the h5 pawn, White plays} 51. Be3+ Kxh5 52. Kg2 {and either the g3 or h6 pawn will fall with a tablebase draw.}) 51. Bc5 Kg4 52. Be3 Kxh5 53. Kg2 Kg4 54. Bxh6 Bc6+ 55. Kf1 Kf3 56. Bd2 e4 57. Be1 Ba4 58. Kg1 Bb5 59. Bb4 e3 60. Bd6 Bc6 61. Bc7 g2 62. Ba5 Ke2 63. Bb4 Kd1 {[#]} 64. a4 $1 e2 (64... Bxa4 65. Kxg2) 65. Kf2 Bxa4 66. Kxg2 $11 e1=Q 67. Bxe1 Kxe1 1/2-1/2

An epic battle that will leave Martyn Kravtsiv (right) with a few regrets as he was poised to take sole first had he beat Arkadij Naiditsch

S.P. Sethuraman was another Indian to take a piece from the podium pie as he won his last game against Akopian, which he presents below

S.P. Sethuraman vs Vladimir Akopian

Coming in fifth place was Indian player Sethuraman, who knew that the only way to get a decent prize was to win his game, and win it he did, against Vladimir Akopian. Here he analyses the final phase with Daniel King.

The final player to join the group on 7.0/9 was Salem Saleh, the local hero. Salem had had a dodgy start with only 2.0/4 in the start, but gained steam quickly and finished with an immaculate 5.0/5 beating Ukrainian Areschenko in the final round.

In the end, Wang Hao’s superb campaign also gave him the best tiebreak, and he took first, while Adhiban came in second, and Kravtsiv took third.

The top female prize went to Harika Dronavalli, easily the highest rated in the event. In the final round, she drew Mikhaylo Oleksiyenko, rated 2643 and finished with 6.0/9

A special mention to WFM Srija Seshadri, rated 2166, who scored 5.5/9 with a 2450+ performance and an IM norm!determined to win with white. Win he did in very short time, and he presents his miniature here.

After the round, kids gather around to analyze and play. In Round 06, IM Praggnanandhaa R. had a scare against talented Nagpur boy Sankalp Gupta (2265) but he managed to hold a draw. He finished with wins over two 2200s to secure 6.0/9.

IM Nihal Sarin drew Kuybukarov (2491) but lost in the last round to Santos Latasa Jaime (2565) to finish with 5.0/9.

FM Raunak Sadhwani beat one IM and drew two others and was also 5.0/9.

Gukesh D. (2260) had suffered a setback, losing to a 1900, but then he showed his trademark 'nerves of steel' to score 1.5/2 against 2400 opposition in the final two rounds, finishing with 5.5/9.

Group photo with organizers, arbiters and winners

Final standings

Rk	SNo	Ti.	Name	FED	Rtg	Pts	TB	rtg+/-
1	5	GM	Wang Hao	CHN	2683	7,0	47,0	12,0
2	6	GM	Adhiban B.	IND	2682	7,0	44,0	11,4
3	21	GM	Kravtsiv Martyn	UKR	2641	7,0	44,0	14,3
4	2	GM	Kryvoruchko Yuriy	UKR	2708	7,0	43,0	4,5
5	23	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	IND	2629	7,0	42,5	10,6
6	18	GM	Salem A.R. Saleh	UAE	2652	7,0	41,0	-1,9
7	4	GM	Naiditsch Arkadij	AZE	2702	6,5	46,5	-1,0
8	16	GM	Fressinet Laurent	FRA	2662	6,5	45,0	2,6
9	17	GM	Amin Bassem	EGY	2660	6,5	44,0	3,5
10	1	GM	Wojtaszek Radoslaw	POL	2745	6,5	43,5	-3,8
11	45	GM	Pichot Alan	ARG	2556	6,5	43,5	8,2
12	28	GM	Adly Ahmed	EGY	2593	6,5	43,0	10,5
	47		Xu Yinglun	CHN	2540	6,5	43,0	14,1
14	13	GM	Sargissian Gabriel	ARM	2666	6,5	42,5	-6,3
15	36	GM	Maghsoodloo Parham	IRI	2576	6,5	41,5	9,9
16	15	GM	Mareco Sandro	ARG	2664	6,5	40,5	-0,9
17	8	GM	Safarli Eltaj	AZE	2680	6,5	40,5	-7,1
18	22	GM	Bluebaum Matthias	GER	2632	6,5	40,0	-0,9
19	54	IM	Xu Xiangyu	CHN	2503	6,5	39,0	16,5
20	12	GM	Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo	VEN	2673	6,0	45,5	-9,3
21	11	GM	Akopian Vladimir	ARM	2675	6,0	44,5	-5,3
22	7	GM	Areshchenko Alexander	UKR	2682	6,0	42,5	-6,0
23	19	GM	Kuzubov Yuriy	UKR	2643	6,0	42,5	-8,2
24	50	GM	Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan	IND	2526	6,0	42,0	6,8
25	31	GM	Gledura Benjamin	HUN	2588	6,0	41,5	4,6
26	73		Yakubboev Nodirbek	UZB	2427	6,0	41,0	5,1
27	20	GM	Oleksiyenko Mykhaylo	UKR	2643	6,0	40,5	-9,7
	72	FM	Abdusattorov Nodirbek	UZB	2429	6,0	40,5	11,6
29	64	IM	Narayanan Srinath	IND	2472	6,0	40,5	14,4
30	59	GM	Debashis Das	IND	2480	6,0	40,0	5,1
31	65	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	IND	2455	6,0	39,5	10,5
32	27	GM	Bok Benjamin	NED	2596	6,0	39,5	-4,2
33	48	GM	Harika Dronavalli	IND	2539	6,0	39,0	8,4
34	42	IM	Santos Latasa Jaime	ESP	2565	6,0	38,5	-13,2
35	55	IM	Stany G.A.	IND	2495	6,0	36,0	0,3
36	10	GM	Jones Gawain C B	ENG	2676	5,5	47,0	-8,9
37	57	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2483	5,5	44,0	4,8
38	79	IM	Vignesh N R	IND	2405	5,5	42,5	18,1
39	38	GM	Svane Rasmus	GER	2570	5,5	41,5	-2,9
	49	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	IND	2534	5,5	41,5	-4,5

Click for complete standings