26th Abu Dhabi Festival Round 6

Karthikeyan's placid positional masterclass!

Karthikeyan Murali is now one of the four players tied to the second place with 5.0/6. He is showing excellent form and it remains to be seen if he can catch up with the leader! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

In round six of the Abu Dhabi Masters 2019, Karthikeyan had the White pieces against the strong Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin. The game started off with a Sicilian Najdorf but the Indian adopted a solid positional approach instead of a sharp double-edged one that is popularly characteristic of the opening. Let's begin by looking at the highlights of this game.

Karthikeyan Murali - Andrei Volokitin, Round 6

6.Be2 is a more solid way of treating the Najdorf, unlike lines with 6.f3 that notoriously lead to wild double-edged play with opposite side castling.

Black gets in the thematic d6-d5 break on move 18. This however loses a pawn after 19.exd5 e4 but Black's pair of bishops and active pieces offer him sufficient compensation.

How should Black meet the mate threat on g7. In the game 23...Bg5 was played, can you do better?

In this position Black had to play 25...Bf6 after which a pair of bishops were traded off.

This liquidation obviously favoured White who was up a pawn!

Next, the exchange of queens simplified matters further.

Not long after White picked up another pawn on the kingside. The game was resigned in just four moves from here.

Aryan Chopra goes Modern hunting!

Aryan Chopra defeated the sixth seed of the event Vladimir Onischuk to climb up to 11th place on the leaderboard. He has 4.5/6 points and with only three rounds to go has very good chances of finishing strongly | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Aryan simply crushed Vladimir Onischuk's Modern defense by seizing copious space early on in the game out of the opening. What came next was just clinical rampage!

Aryan Chopra - Vladimir Onischuk, Round 6

Position after 14.bxc3: White already has a decisive advantage with that massively extended pawn center. Next step would be to launch an onslaught with h4-h5 and bring over the a1 rook to the kingside via a rook-lift.

With the g7 bishop gone the dark squares around the black king are all the more weak. White goes about pushing h4-h5 first.

Time to bring over the rook to support the kingside flank attack!

Position after 26.Ng5: hxg6 is strongly threatened.

White inflicts a further weakness on e6.

The final breakthrough! With the rooks doubled up on the sixth rank it is now game over for Black. Resignation came after only four moves from here.

International Master Krishna C.R.G pulls off an upset!

International Master Krishna C.R.G defeated the fifth seed of the event Vladimir Akopian. This was perhaps the biggest upset of the three as the rating difference between the players was only 13 points shy of 200! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Krishna C.R.G is on 4.0/6. Apart from the fourth round loss against compatriot Vaibhav Suri his performance has been overall solid throughout the event | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Akopian began with a slightly worse structure of the Benoni. The Indian IM played some flawless chess to capitalize on his advantage and snub every counter chances his Armenian could have!

Krishna C.R.G - Vladimir Akopian, Round 6

Position after 12...Re8: White already has better space and development. Black's only hope lies in the prospect of counterplay on the queenside.

20.b4! - an excellent move that puts a total stop on Black's advances on the queenside!

Black played 30...Bd7, instead 30...Qe5 would have been better. Can you guess what White did next?

The final blow in the above position came as 31.e5!, after 31...dxe5 32.d6 Qe6 33.Ne4 Nc5 was strongly threatened and White broke through.

Jobava's stunning dominance!

Jobava Baadur registered his sixth consecutive victory against Parham Maghsoodloo to take a full point lead over the entire field! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Jobava is having a phenomenal run lately. In the next round he is paired up against the strong Chinese Grandmaster Ni hua

Praggnananddhaa secures third place in the Blitz event!

The Blitz event of the festival was held on the 6th of August. The event was won by Parham Maghsoodloo and India's wunderkid secured an impressive third place.

An overview of Pragg's phenomenal Blitz performance!

His win against Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei in the penultimate round was particularly notable. You can check out the video of this encounter sent to us by Rupali Mullick:

Results of round 6

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	26	GM	Jobava Baadur	2584	5	1 - 0	4½	GM	Maghsoodloo Parham	2656	4
2	2	GM	Ni Hua	2668	4	1 - 0	4	GM	Tabatabaei M.Amin	2601	17
3	14	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2612	4	1 - 0	4	GM	Volokitin Andrei	2636	7
4	10	GM	Socko Bartosz	2625	4	1 - 0	4	GM	Petrosyan Manuel	2592	23
5	28	GM	Yakubboev Nodirbek	2574	4	1 - 0	4	GM	Indjic Aleksandar	2617	11
6	12	GM	Yilmaz Mustafa	2614	3½	½ - ½	4	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	2571	29
7	30	GM	Yuffa Daniil	2571	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Salem A.R. Saleh	2668	3
8	36	GM	Aryan Chopra	2553	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Onischuk Vladimir	2640	6
9	38	GM	Sanal Vahap	2535	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Esipenko Andrey	2625	9
10	44	GM	Kuybokarov Temur	2511	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Bartel Mateusz	2612	13
11	74	FM	Assaubayeva Bibisara	2375	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2607	15
12	16	GM	Zubov Alexander	2607	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Idani Pouya	2581	27
13	18	GM	Antipov Mikhail Al.	2599	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Praggnanandhaa R	2569	32
14	20	GM	Petrov Nikita	2595	3½	½ - ½	3½	GM	Istratescu Andrei	2561	34
15	78	FM	Rathanvel V S	2367	3½	½ - ½	3½	GM	Abdusattorov Nodirbek	2594	21
16	22	GM	Can Emre	2593	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Sindarov Javokhir	2507	45
17	24	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2591	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Xu Yi	2531	39
18	55	IM	Muradli Mahammad	2454	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Kryvoruchko Yuriy	2686	1
19	57	IM	Krishna C R G	2444	3	1 - 0	3	GM	Akopian Vladimir	2650	5
20	8	GM	Ter-Sahakyan Samvel	2632	3	1 - 0	3	IM	Aditya Mittal	2429	61

Standings after round 6

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	26	GM	Jobava Baadur	GEO	2584	6,0	0,0	2575	20,5
2	28	GM	Yakubboev Nodirbek	UZB	2574	5,0	0,0	2581	19,0
3	10	GM	Socko Bartosz	POL	2625	5,0	0,0	2537	20,0
4	14	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	IND	2612	5,0	0,0	2529	20,5
5	2	GM	Ni Hua	CHN	2668	5,0	0,0	2493	19,5
6	4	GM	Maghsoodloo Parham	IRI	2656	4,5	0,0	2572	23,5
7	29	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	BLR	2571	4,5	0,0	2569	23,0
8	16	GM	Zubov Alexander	UKR	2607	4,5	0,0	2538	20,0
9	30	GM	Yuffa Daniil	RUS	2571	4,5	0,0	2538	19,5
10	13	GM	Bartel Mateusz	POL	2612	4,5	0,0	2519	23,0
11	36	GM	Aryan Chopra	IND	2553	4,5	0,0	2518	20,5
12	18	GM	Antipov Mikhail Al.	RUS	2599	4,5	0,0	2497	18,5
13	9	GM	Esipenko Andrey	RUS	2625	4,5	0,0	2492	19,5
14	22	GM	Can Emre	TUR	2593	4,5	0,0	2480	20,0
15	15	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2607	4,5	0,0	2478	21,0
16	24	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2591	4,5	0,0	2441	19,0
17	23	GM	Petrosyan Manuel	ARM	2592	4,0	0,0	2576	24,0
18	11	GM	Indjic Aleksandar	SRB	2617	4,0	0,0	2556	25,0
19	12	GM	Yilmaz Mustafa	TUR	2614	4,0	0,0	2552	23,0
20	57	IM	Krishna C R G	IND	2444	4,0	0,0	2548	21,5

The seventh round of the event begins at 6:30 p.m. You can follow it live on the official YouTube Channel of Abu Dhabi Chess.

Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 6: Indians cause triple upsets in the sixth round of Abu Dhabi Festival