Last seed Eesha Karavade is the best performing Indian at the Aeroflot Open 2018

by Niklesh Jain - 23/02/2018

This is one of the biggest Indian contingent ever witnessed at the Aeroflot Open 2018. We have 16 players in the A group, 37 in the B group and 11 in the C. It comes to a total of 64 players! Of course, a lot of Indians get paired against each other, but that is just the part of the deal. After the initial three rounds a very surprising super performer for team India has emerged - IM Eesha Karavade! She is the last seed in the A group, but has scored 2.0/3 and is currently placed 13th, the highest rank by an Indian ahead of Vidit, Sasikiran, Sethu and the others! In the B group we have Nubairshah Sheikh who is on 3.0/3 and in the C group it is Kumar Gaurav on 100% score. Report from Moscow by Niklesh Jain.

The A category of the Aeroflot Open 2018 is reserved for only the strongest chess players in the world. The prospectus of the tournament mentions that all players above the rating of 2550 can participate in the A group. When the tournament begins, they do make some exceptions and allow some of the players below 2550 to take part as well. For example there are 92 players and 52 of them are 2550+. Naturally for those below 2500 this is a great learning platform. Eesha Karavade with a rating of 2386 is the lowest rated player in the tournament. In fact the second last seed has an Elo of 2446, which makes her the last seed by quite some margin.

It could be assumed that she would have a very tough time at the event, especially because she would be facing a GM in almost all the rounds that she plays. True, it would be a learning experience, but then losing a lot of games is never fun! But Eesha is showing what a tremendous player she is in this tournament, by being the highest ranked Indian after three rounds. She has scored 2.0/3 with win over GM Amin Tabatabaei, and draws against GM Vidit Gujrathi and GM Wen Yang. With this she has reached the 13th position in the standings which is much higher than all our top ranked Indian GMs including Vidit, Sasikiran, Sethuraman and others!

Eesha Karavade proving to the world that her participation in the A group is by no means just an experience gaining expedition

Here are two games of Eesha. The first one is the draw against Vidit and the second is against the strong Chinese GM Wen Yang

GM Vidit Gujrathi has found the event to be quite tough for himself. He has three draws out of three rounds and is already losing seven Elo points. For a 2723 player such tournaments are quite unforgiving, you either win, or you keep bleeding.

Vidit during his third round draw against GM Manuel Petrosyan

Vidit speaks about his draw in the first round against S.L. Narayanan

S.L. Narayanan on being slightly better in the final position against Vidit

Sethuraman started off well with two wins in two rounds, but in the third one he slumped to a defeat against GM Tigran Petrosian

Earlier in the second round Sethu had scored a nice win over Kaido Kulaots in the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian. Here's what he had to say about the game in the post-game interview:

Sethuraman discusses his victory over Kaido Kulaots

Sasikiran has not lost a game yet, but he hasn't won a game either - 1.5/3

Nihal had inferior positions against Sasikiran and Inarkiev, but he managed to wriggle out of the mess in both the games to remain unbeaten

R. Praggnanandhaa has 1.0/3. It's still possible that he can score a GM norm here, but it is almost certain that he cannot break Karjakin's record because he has to make two GM norms and his next tournament is the Reykjavik Open which ends after the world record threshold date.

Viktor Bologan is the leader in the A-group along with GM Tigran Petrosian with 3.0/3. In the third round Bologan played a beautiful game to beat Anton Korobov

Indian performance at Group A

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Pts.	Rk.	Group
2	GM	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	2723	IND	½	½	½							1,5	60	Open A
11	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	2671	IND	½	½	½							1,5	38	Open A
15	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	2646	IND	1	1	0							2,0	15	Open A
25	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2617	IND	½	1	½							2,0	18	Open A
36	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2598	IND	½	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1,5	66	Open A
43	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2585	IND	1	0	1							2,0	19	Open A
48	GM	Narayanan.S.L	2573	IND	½	0	1							1,5	29	Open A
57	IM	Nihal Sarin	2532	IND	½	½	½							1,5	51	Open A
67	GM	Aryan Chopra	2509	IND	½	1	½							2,0	20	Open A
68	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	2507	IND	½	0	½							1,0	69	Open A
70	GM	Debashis Das	2501	IND	½	0	0							0,5	84	Open A
72	GM	Gagare Shardul	2494	IND	½	0	1							1,5	34	Open A
87	IM	Iniyan P	2460	IND	½	½	0							1,0	78	Open A
88	FM	Erigaisi Arjun	2458	IND	½	0	1							1,5	57	Open A
91	IM	Raja Harshit	2448	IND	½	½	½							1,5	58	Open A
92	IM	Karavade Eesha	2386	IND	1	½	½							2,0	13	Open A

B group

Nubairshah Sheikh continues his fine form in the past few months and is leading the B-group with 3.0/3

GM Abhijit Kunte is rock solid as usual and is on 2.0/3

2.0/3 for our four-time National Champion Padmini Rout

Mary Ann Gomes has found the going tough and is on 0.5/3

Fenil Shah already has 2 IM norms and with 1.5/3 has good chances to make his third one here

Gukesh, who did really well at the Moscow Open and scored an IM norm, has been found slacking a bit and is on 0.5/3. He is sure to make a comeback.

A brave decision by Divya Deshmukh is to play in the B-group instead of C. She is on 0.5/3 but has already learned a lot.

Overview of Indian performances in B group

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	Pts.	Rk.	Group
5	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2499	IND	½	½	1	2,0	24	Open B
20	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2443	IND	1	0	0	1,0	102	Open B
26	GM	Sundararajan Kidambi	2427	IND	1	½	½	2,0	44	Open B
36	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2413	IND	1	1	1	3,0	5	Open B
39		Rahul Srivatshav P	2408	IND	0	1	1	2,0	28	Open B
53	IM	Krishna Teja N	2371	IND	½	1	1	2,5	12	Open B
54	IM	Abhishek Kelkar	2370	IND	1	0	1	2,0	48	Open B
63	WGM	Soumya Swaminathan	2349	IND	1	½	½	2,0	21	Open B
67	FM	Fenil Shah	2346	IND	½	0	1	1,5	52	Open B
69	WIM	Vaishali R	2342	IND	0	1	0	1,0	77	Open B
71	FM	Sadhwani Raunak	2339	IND	½	½	1	2,0	19	Open B
75	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	2329	IND	½	0	0	0,5	106	Open B
76	IM	Padmini Rout	2325	IND	1	½	½	2,0	33	Open B
77		Muthaiah Al	2325	IND	0	1	½	1,5	54	Open B
79	IM	Kathmale Sameer	2320	IND	0	½	0	0,5	115	Open B
80	CM	Gukesh D	2320	IND	½	0	0	0,5	118	Open B
85		Raahul V S	2305	IND	0	0	½	0,5	116	Open B
86	FM	Mitrabha Guha	2303	IND	1	1	0	2,0	35	Open B
90		Pranav V	2284	IND	0	1	0	1,0	93	Open B
92	WIM	Monnisha G K	2281	IND	0	0	1	1,0	98	Open B
95		Navalgund Niranjan	2270	IND	0	0	½	0,5	107	Open B
96	FM	Anand Nadar	2262	IND	½	½	0	1,0	95	Open B
100	IM	Mohota Nisha	2256	IND	1	0	0	1,0	99	Open B
101	WIM	Mahalakshmi M	2252	IND	0	½	½	1,0	81	Open B
102	FM	Shailesh Dravid	2246	IND	1	1	0	2,0	36	Open B
103	WIM	Nandhidhaa Pv	2241	IND	0	½	0	0,5	111	Open B
107	IM	Praveen Kumar C	2228	IND	0	½	1	1,5	56	Open B
108	FM	Raja Rithvik R	2227	IND	1	0	0	1,0	97	Open B
109		Moksh Amit Doshi	2221	IND	½	0	1	1,5	58	Open B
110		Kulkarni Chinmay	2215	IND	0	0	½	0,5	110	Open B
114	CM	Aditya Mittal	2206	IND	1	½	0	1,5	66	Open B
116		Manush Shah	2202	IND	½	1	½	2,0	37	Open B
121	WIM	Pujari Rucha	2171	IND	0	1	0	1,0	101	Open B
122		Narendran Gouthaman	2165	IND	0	½	0	0,5	122	Open B
124	WFM	Divya Deshmukh	2138	IND	0	0	½	0,5	112	Open B
125		Pranav Anand	2024	IND	½	0	½	1,0	84	Open B
126	WIM	Gagare Shalmali	2001	IND	0	1	½	1,5	68	Open B

Overview of Indian performance in C group

Kumar Gaurav is leading the event with 3.0/3.

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	Pts.	Rk.	Group
19		Kulkarni Chinmay	2215	IND	1	1	0	2,0	15	Open C
25	WIM	Pujari Rucha	2171	IND	1	1	0	2,0	31	Open C
29		Prasannaa.S	2158	IND	1	0	1	2,0	34	Open C
34	WFM	Lasya.G	2119	IND	1	0	1	2,0	19	Open C
36		Kumar Gaurav	2116	IND	1	1	1	3,0	2	Open C
40	WFM	Jishitha D	2099	IND	1	½	0	1,5	39	Open C
49	CM	Mendonca Leon Luke	1993	IND	½	0	1	1,5	47	Open C
50		Harshita Guddanti	1986	IND	0	1	1	2,0	23	Open C
52		Rakshitta Ravi	1973	IND	0	1	1	2,0	24	Open C
55	WFM	Meghna C H	1946	IND	0	1	0	1,0	67	Open C
56	WFM	Lakshmi C	1930	IND	0	1	0	1,0	58	Open C

Life of a journalist. First of to arrive, last one to leave! But, hey! I am not complaining. It's a joy to see so many Indians play and learn at one of the strongest tournaments in the world. I will continued my detailed coverage of the event. Yours truly Niklesh Jain.

Last seed Eesha Karavade is the best performing Indian at the Aeroflot Open 2018

Indian performance at Group A

B group

Overview of Indian performances in B group

Overview of Indian performance in C group

Video reports Round one:

Round two:

Round three: