Abu Dhabi Masters: A shock defeat for Abhijeet Gupta

Round 2

In the first round of the Abu Dhabi Masters, we had seen the top seed of the tournament, GM Le Quang Liem fall against a young International Master from India, IM VS Rathanvel. In the second round, however, there weren’t any serious casualties at the top. Sure, three higher rated players among the top ten boards were held to draws, but that was all.

On the top board, Richard Rapport won in his trademark style against Dinara Saduakassova. From the white side of a Classical Nimzo-Indian Defence, the Kazakhstani WGM came up with a novelty early in the game and then castled on the queen’s wing signalling a full-blooded fight. And Richard being Richard, was only glad to oblige. On his 13th turn, he simply offered a bishop to castle short.

It’s not quite clear how black will achieve anything tangible in this position if the bishop is captured. Sure, he has the initiative and white is passive but fact remains that black is a piece down. The computer also calls it even for several moves after the sac but nothing concrete is reached. Saduakassova declined the sacrifice, however, and tucked her king into safety with 13.Kb1. A few tricks later, the following position was reached.

Twenty moves had been played so far and both players had gone nuts to their heart’s content. At the moment, white is a full rook down. Of course, white can collect the h1 knight and keep a decent position. But quite apparently, that’s not Dinara’s style. She played 21.Qc5 here, with a very specific trick in mind. Black rescued his knight with 21…Nf2 and white went 22.Qe7.

On the surface, it looks like black can’t avoid a queen exchange since if he moves his queen away 23.Qxf8 leads to an instant mate. Richard agreed with this evaluation and exchanged queens here, missing the strong refutation, 22…Bf5+! Nevertheless, he was still better after the game continuation 22…Qxe7 23.Nxe7+ Kh8 24.Rd2 Rb8.

It’s time for white to take the f2 knight now, either directly or after 25.Nc6 Rb6. In either case, white is worse. Instead, Saduakassova decided to seek counterplay here with c6-c6-c7. But this was a bit too far-fetched. Rapport wrapped the game up soon after this.

On board three, Wang Hao crushed GM Swapnil Dhopade with the black pieces. The two discussed a Queen’s Indian Defence in which the Indian GM came up with a rare knight manoeuvre Ne1-c2. Wang was perhaps acquainted with the position. He responded with the novelty 12…Rfc8, intending to exploit the position of the c2 knight after 13.Nc2 with 13…b5.

In the middle game, Wang began to press with his queenside majority while Dhopade sought counterplay in a central passer. But as play progressed, Wang was able to catch white’s passed pawn while his own majority rolled down the queenside. Dhopade was forced to throw in the towel 34 moves into the game.

Board five saw another disaster for team India. Playing against Daniil Dubov with the white pieces, P Iniyan found himself in a mess quite early in the game that began with a Dutch Defence. Players had castled on opposite wings when Iniyan allowed a bishop exchange on the b3 square. At the outset, this looked rather harmless but within a few moves, it was clear the black’s attack was coming at lightning fast speed. Storming his queenside pawns down the board, Dubov went hunting for the white king. While it was already difficult to handle black’s attack on the king, Dubov’s far advanced a-pawn soon became another bone in the neck for the young Indian IM. By the 24th move, Dubov had forced resignation.

While the lower rated Indians lost on top boards, things weren’t hunky-dory for the top rated Indian Grandmaster either. He was pitted against the Uzbek IM Gunay Mammadzada and was caught by shock in the middle game.

Mammadzada had achieved a slight edge in the game having sacrificed a pawn in the Tarrasch variation of the French when Abhijeet made a fatal error. On his 21st turn, he went with his knight to a5 and that spelt doom for the Delhi based GM.

Mammadzada responded with the refutation 22.Nb3 and after black took the rook with 22…Nxb7, white simply recaptured with 23.Bxb7 and left black with both his rook and bishop en prise. Gupta tried the desperado 23…Bxf2 but soon white’s material surplus made itself count.

Despite all of the disappointing results, the day wasn’t all that bad for team India. On the top ten boards, three Indians were able to hold their higher rated opponents to a draw. On boards seven and eight Harsha Bharathakoti and GM RR Laxman held Gabriel Sargissian and Anton Korobov to draws with remarkable ease. D Gukesh’s game against Vladimir Akopian on board 10 wasn’t very different either. Gukesh too proved himself to be a strong match to his Grandmaster opponent and held a draw comfortably.

This wasn’t quite the case for the 13-year-old Raunak Sadhwani. Raunak had the black pieces against the Egyptian number two, GM Ahmed Adly and was down a pawn in the knight endgame. It is said that knight endgames are like pawn endgames and with his extra pawn, white should be winning this one. But Raunak fought tooth and nail in this position and managed to gain some counterplay.

Raunak played 53...g5 here, praying that white takes. Adly, of course, did not take – not immediately, at least. But four moves later, he did! This allowed Raunak to get a passed pawn of his own and generate enough counterplay to hold on to a draw.

Round 2 results

Standings after round 2

Round 3 pairing

All games

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About the Author 

Aditya Pai is an ardent chess fan, avid reader, and a film lover. He holds a Master's in English Literature and used to work as an advertising copywriter before joining the ChessBase India team.

Previous reports

Abu Dhabi Masters: Rathanvel dominates Le Quang Liem!