Abhijeet Gupta stops the Karthikeyan Express

Round 6 + 7 report in the open section

In the sixth round, Adhiban Baskaran was pitted against the man in form, Murali Karthikeyan. Adhiban had won three games in a row and it remained to be seen if he could bring Karthikeyan's killing spree to a halt. The latter, with the white pieces, chose the exchange variation of Ruy Lopez; queens were traded on move 23 and soon the following position was on the board:

Murali Karthikeyan - Adhiban Baskaran, Round 6

Black sort of hastily decided at this point to give up his minor pieces for a rook, 27...f5 28.exf5 Nxf3 29.Kxf3 Be2+ 30.Kf2 Bxd1 31.Rxd1 was played and the evaluation of the position completely changed.

The tables were turned on Adhiban, White's minor pieces are far too active and the black queen-side pawns far too loose, after 31...Rhf8 32.f6 gxf6 33.Bd6 Rf7 34.Nb6+ Kd8 the c5, d4 pawns are clearly falling.

Black gave up on move 36 and Karthikeyan remained in the sole lead at the end of the sixth round with an astounding 5.5/6!

In round 7 Karthikeyan's unbeaten streak was finally broken and it was only another Indian, Abhijeet Gupta, who brought about the upset. It was a long game, Karthikeyan played inaccurately on move 31 and blundered on move 33 but Gupta was not quite able to find the best way to finish him off. Let us see what happened.

Abhijeet Gupta - Murali Karthikeyan, Round 7

White has created a dangerous passed g-pawn and Black's king is weak but there is actually no immediate danger. For instance, in a line like 31...c6 32.Qh6+ Kg8 33.Qg6+ Kf8 nothing happens. But in the game 31...Qe6?! was played and this was a critical error because moving the queen out of a1-h8 diagonal allowed White to go for 32.b4

Next, after 32...Nd3 33.Bg4 Black's best chance lay in 33.Qg6 Qxg6 34.Kxg6 Bxd7 35.e3 trading queens and hoping for some play with the passed e-pawn but Karthikeyan lost it completely and went 33...Qxc4 which is a serious blunder, white wins on spot here with 33.Qh6+ Kf7 34.g6+ Ke8 35.Nd5.

But it was Gupta's turn to make an imprecision, the game went 33.Qh6+ Kf7 34.Qh7+?! Kf8 35.Qh8+ Qg8 36.Qxg8 Kxg8 37.Bxd7 and White was still winning but it has only become a difficult technical task now.

The game went on for 71 moves until Black resigned.

The top seed of the tournament Vidit Gujrathi continued to march ahead with yet another victory, this time against compatriot Vaibhav Suri. Vidit lost his game to Praggnanandhaa in what was the biggest upset of the fourth round but since then has won three consecutive games. He must keep this performance going if he has to qualify for the 2019 World Cup. Let's see the critical moment of his round7 game against Vaibhav.

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi - Vaibhav Suri, Round 7

Black is looking to harass the white queen with Rab8, White could play safe here with a move like 18.c4, after 18...Rab8 19.Qe1 Rb3 Black is doing well and should easily hold. But Vidit opted here the most incisive way with 18.Rd5!? which evinced that he was in no mood for a draw.

The game went 18...Rab8 19.Qa4 Bxd5 20.exd5 Rb5 21.d6 and White was fighting to create chances. 

Next, after 21...Qc6 22.Ng3 Rxc5 23.Qg4 the tension had suddenly swung sideways to the king-side, Nf5 is now an idea, note the royal fork on e7!

23...Rc4 24.Nf5! Rxg4 25.Ne7+ Kh8 26.Nxc6 was played and the following position was on the board:

26...Ra4 27.Nxa5 Rxa5 28.Bxa7 Rxa3 would have been the most logical play, Black erred with 26...Rxg2+ and 27.Kxg2 Nxc6 28.Rd1 Rd8 29.d7 followed.

The end of the game was quite nice!

Results of round 6 

Results of round 7

Standings after round 7

Bhakti loses her lead in Women's Section

In round 7 Bhakti Kulkarni suffered a bitter loss after committing a careless blunder against Irine Kharisma Sukandar. With this she has slipped to the third spot, a full point below Dinara Saduakassova and Irine Kharisma Sukandar who share the lead with 6/7. Let's see where Bhakti went wrong in today's game.

Bhakti Kulkarni - Irine Kharisma Sukandar, Round 7

In the above position the game went 33.Ncxd5  Nxd5 34.Rxc8 Bxc8 and at this point Bhakti had a blind spot, she played 35.Nxd5 - a blunder - 35...Bb7 wins the d5 knight!

Results of round 7

Standings after round 7

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