28th Abu Dhabi Masters 2022 R1: Sanket Chakravarty stuns Aditya Mittal
Abu Dhabi Chess Festival is finally back in its original form of Classical tournament. Last year in December, the 27th edition was a shortened one due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time since 2019, the 28th Abu Dhabi Masters witnesses the participation of 148 players including 73 Indians making it almost 50% players are Indians. Arjun Erigaisi is the highest rated Indian in the field. 24 players are rated above 2600. 43 GMs, 35 IMs, 7 WGMs and 3 WIMs are taking part. The average rating of the tournament is 2396. That should give you an idea about the strength of the tournament. Sanket Chakravarty scored the biggest upset of the first round as he defeated IM Aditya Mittal. Round 2 starts today at 11:30 a.m. IST. Photo: Rupali Mullick
Good start for a lot of Indians
FM Sharan Rao, FM Jubin Jimmy, 31st National Under-18 champion CM Soham Kamotra, FM Aradhya Garg, WIM Rucha Pujari, Anish Gandhi, IM Manish Anto Cristiano F, CM Aaditya Dhingra and Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri drew their respective games against GM Shardul Gagare, IM Nubairshah Shaikh, IM Rathanvel V S, IM Arash Tahbaz (IRI), IM Arghyadip Das, IM Srihari L R, GM Ziaur Rahman (BAN), IM Siddharth Jagadeesh (SGP) and IM Dushyant Sharma respectively. Sanket is known to cause upsets in the first round. Last year, he drew with GM Michal Krasenkow in Bangladesh. Vatsal Singhania got himself a completely winning position in the final moment of the endgame against GM Deep Sengupta. He was unable to make the most out of his opportunity.
Sanket - Aditya Mittal: 1-0
Sanket Chakravarty (2275) got an early opportunity when his opponent IM Aditya Mittal (2496) went wrong early in the middlegame.
13.Bxd7 Nxd7 14.Nf5 f6 makes Black's position quite uncomfortable. White opted for the solid continuation 13.0-0 and eventually got an opportunity to launch an attack on his opponent's kingside.
29...c4 was the final mistake by Black which turned things completely in White's favor. Find out the winning continuation.
For more Round 1 photos, please click here.
FM Sharan Rao - GM Shardul Gagare: 0.5-0.5
Sanket Chakravarty - IM Aditya Mittal: 1-0
IM Nubairshah Shaikh - FM Jubin Jimmy: 0.5-0.5
CM Soham Kamotra - IM Rathanvel V S: 0.5-0.5
FM Aradhya Garg - IM Arash Tahbaz (IRI): 0.5-0.5
IM Arghyadip Das - WIM Rucha Pujari: 0.5-0.5
Anish Gandhi - IM Srihari L R: 0.5-0.5
IM Manish Anto Cristiano F - GM Ziaur Rahman (BAN): 0.5-0.5
IM Siddharth Jagadeesh (SGP) - CM Aaditya Dhingra: 0.5-0.5
IM Dushyant Sharma - Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri: 0.5-0.5
A total of 148 players including 43 GMs, 35 IMs, 7 WGMs and 3 WIMs are taking part from 31 countries across the world including India. The tournament is being organized by Abu Dhabi Chess Club & Mind Games from 17th to 25th August 2022 at Abu Dhabi, UAE. The nine-round Swiss league tournament has a time control of 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move no.1.
