Last seed Eesha Karavade is the best performing Indian at the Aeroflot Open 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!
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
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:
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
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 |
Video reports Round one:
Round two:
Round three: