Bomb scare halts round 1 at the Aeroflot Open 2019

by Sagar Shah - 19/02/2019

While the first round of the Aeroflot Open 2019 was in progress, the players were asked to evacuate Hotel Cosmos because of a bomb scare. Some players went straight outside on to the streets in -1°C cold, while some took the risk, went up to their rooms got their jackets and then ran outside. The Indian contingent then was taken to the nearby college where they spent nearly four hours. Things are under control and it seems like it was a hoax call. The Indian players are all safe. AICF and the officials in Moscow also contacted the Indian embassy in Moscow and measures were taken to bring everything under control. Round one will be played tomorrow once again with the same pairing and on one of the subsequent days there were be two rounds held.

There was a bomb scare in round 1 of the Aeroflot Open 2019 at Hotel Cosmos. The players were given 10 minutes to collect their important stuff and were evacuated from the playing hall and the hotel and were forced to spend some time on the road in -1°C. The good news is that all the players are safe. The bad news is that round 1, which had started, has been cancelled. The players will play a new game against the same opponents tomorrow and on one of the subsequent days there will be double rounds.

The sun was shining as the players were on the streets. The temperature was -1°C.

Some of the youngsters are really feeling the cold. Especially Sankalp Gupta (third from left)

Players from Maharahstra Shantanu Bhambure, Nikhil Dixit, Sammed Shete, Abhimanyu Puranik, Rithvik Raja and his mother

Bomb or no bomb, chess players have to analyze! The players walked for 5-10 minutes and were taken to a nearby college.

Group of experienced players

Group of youngsters - Gukesh, Divya, Rakshitta, Iniyan, Isha Sharma, K. Priyanka, Ajay Krishna and parents

Nothing to worry!

All's well that ends well!

Pairings of Indian players for round one - A group:

Rd.	Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	5	55	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	IND	2560	0		0	GM	Kovalev Vladislav	BLR	2703	5
1	7	57	GM	Lalith Babu M R	IND	2556	0		0	GM	Inarkiev Ernesto	RUS	2692	7
1	11	61	IM	Sychev Klementy	RUS	2545	0		0	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	IND	2678	11
1	13	63	GM	Aryan Chopra	IND	2540	0		0	GM	Sjugirov Sanan	RUS	2663	13
1	14	14	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	IND	2651	0		0	GM	Ghaem Maghami Ehsan	IRI	2540	64
1	15	65	GM	Puranik Abhimanyu	IND	2538	0		0	GM	Anton Guijarro David	ESP	2642	15
1	17	67	GM	Debashis Das	IND	2532	0		0	GM	Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo	VEN	2640	17
1	18	18	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	IND	2636	0		0	GM	Praggnanandhaa R	IND	2532	68
1	21	71	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	IND	2524	0		0	GM	Sarana Alexey	RUS	2630	21
1	24	24	GM	Grachev Boris	RUS	2626	0		0	IM	Gukesh D	IND	2508	74
1	28	28	GM	Martirosyan Haik M.	ARM	2616	0		0	GM	Gagare Shardul	IND	2495	78
1	29	79	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	IND	2494	0		0	GM	Zhou Jianchao	CHN	2615	29
1	34	34	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	KAZ	2604	0		0	IM	Iniyan P	IND	2480	84
1	37	87	GM	Harika Dronavalli	IND	2471	0		0	GM	Gordievsky Dmitry	RUS	2603	37
1	38	38	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2601	0		0	IM	Prithu Gupta	IND	2470	88
1	41	42	GM	Narayanan.S.L	IND	2593	0		0	IM	Warmerdam Max	NED	2450	92
1	42	93	IM	Sadhwani Raunak	IND	2448	0		0	GM	Tabatabaei M.Amin	IRI	2590	43
1	43	44	GM	Antipov Mikhail Al.	RUS	2589	0		0	IM	Arjun Kalyan	IND	2444	94
1	44	95	IM	Raja Rithvik R	IND	2443	0		0	GM	Nihal Sarin	IND	2578	45
1	46	97	WIM	Zhu Jiner	CHN	2442	0		0	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2575	47
1	48	99	FM	Suleymenov Alisher	KAZ	2428	0		0	GM	Narayanan Srinath	IND	2572	49
1	49	91	CM	Aditya Mittal	IND	2454	0		0	GM	Petrosian Tigran L.	ARM	2595	41

Indians in Group B

Rd.	Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	10	10	GM	Shyam Sundar M.	IND	2512	0		0		Sankalp Gupta	IND	2345	72
1	16	16	GM	Hamitevici Vladimir	MDA	2490	0		0		Koustav Chatterjee	IND	2332	79
1	17	80	FM	Konaplev Anton	RUS	2330	0		0	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	IND	2488	17
1	19	82	CM	Aronyak Ghosh	IND	2324	0		0	GM	Kostenko Petr	KAZ	2466	19
1	22	22	IM	Golubov Saveliy	RUS	2459	0		0	FM	Dixit Nikhil	IND	2318	85
1	23	86	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	IND	2317	0		0	IM	Kazakovskiy Valeriy	BLR	2456	23
1	25	88	IM	Padmini Rout	IND	2315	0		0	IM	Drygalov Sergey	RUS	2450	25
1	29	92		Ajay Karthikeyan	IND	2298	0		0	IM	Muradli Mahammad	AZE	2444	29
1	35	98	WIM	Nandhidhaa P V	IND	2268	0		0		Bazeev German	RUS	2423	35
1	45	109		Bhambure Shantanu	IND	2220	0		0	WGM	Ambartsumova Karina	RUS	2396	45
1	46	46	IM	Nitin S.	IND	2395	0		0	AGM	Srihari L R	IND	2211	110
1	50	50	FM	Tsoi Dmitry	RUS	2392	0		0	WIM	Mahalakshmi M	IND	2185	114
1	51	115	CM	Samadov Read	AZE	2180	0		0	IM	Krishna Teja N	IND	2391	51
1	53	117	CM	Stukan Martin	RUS	2169	0		0		Sammed Jaykumar Shete	IND	2387	53
1	57	121		Jaeel Atharva	IND	2145	0		0	FM	Zakaryan David	RUS	2382	57
1	58	58	FM	Popov Mikhail	RUS	2381	0		0	WIM	Pujari Rucha	IND	2133	122
1	59	123	WIM	Chitlange Sakshi	IND	2127	0		0	GM	Zhukova Natalia	UKR	2377	59
1	60	60	CM	Mendonca Leon Luke	IND	2376	0		0	WIM	Divya Deshmukh	IND	2126	124
1	61	125		Rakshitta Ravi	IND	2105	0		0	IM	Gorbatov Alexej	RUS	2369	61
1	62	62	FM	Abdisalimov Abdimalik	UZB	2367	0		0	WIM	Gagare Shalmali	IND	2026	126

The most interesting pairing for Indians was beaten Ganguly and Praggnanandhaa. In fact they had played a few moves out of the opening and Ganguly seemed clearly better!

It is interesting to note that on the day when Ganguly versus Praggnanandhaa video on ChessBase India YouTube Channel reached 10 million views, the two opponents were paired once again. For all those who haven't see that video already, here it is:

For players who showed some amazing bit of preparation, this round not getting played was a big setback. Like Tamir Nabaty who showed some excellent home prep against Santos Miguel Ruiz.

Niklesh Jain's Shatranj Samachar on Moscow Bomb scare:

Special thanks to Bhavesh Patel for sending us the pictures and some important information

Related news:

	Meet Pranesh M, the 13-year-old who has become the country's latest IM @ 14/03/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	Interview with the youngest ever Aeroflot Open winner - Aydin Suleymanli @ 14/03/2020 by Sagar Shah (en)
	Pranav Anand and Rucha Pujari make norms at Aeroflot Open B @ 04/03/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	सबको पीछे छोड़ 14 वर्षीय सुलेमानली बने ऐरोफ़्लोट विजेता @ 28/02/2020 by Niklesh Jain (hi)
	14-year-old Aydin Suleymanli is the champion of Aeroflot Open 2020 @ 28/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	ऐरोफ़्लोट ओपन - अंतिम राउंड में जीत के साथ भारत सुब्रमण्यम को मिला ग्रांड मास्टर नार्म @ 27/02/2020 by Niklesh Jain (hi)
	Aeroflot R08: Bharath Subramaniyam makes his maiden GM norm @ 27/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	14-year-old Aydin Suleymanli's move that would have made Dvoretsky proud! @ 27/02/2020 by Sagar Shah (en)
	Aeroflot R07: Adhiban and Aravindh join the chasing pack of eight players @ 26/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	With last two rounds to go, who are the top performing Indians at the Aeroflot Open 2020 @ 26/02/2020 by Sagar Shah (en)
	ऐरोफ़्लोट 2020:वैभव नें टॉप सीड अर्टेमिव को हराया @ 25/02/2020 by Niklesh Jain (hi)
	Aeroflot R06: Vaibhav Suri stuns top seed Vladislav Artemiev @ 25/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	Aeroflot R04+05: Bharath's opening misfortune and beastly glimpses of Adhiban @ 24/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	ऐरोफ़्लोट 2020- 12 वर्षीय भारत सुब्रमण्यम का धमाका @ 23/02/2020 by Niklesh Jain (hi)
	Aeroflot R03: After Pranesh it is now Bharath's turn to sizzle @ 22/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	Aeroflot R02: Sethuraman is one of the four leaders @ 21/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	Pranesh punishes Savchenko's dubious play @ 21/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	Aeroflot Open Chess Festival begins, Indians looking to take the event by storm @ 20/02/2020 by Satanick Mukhuty (en)
	Five norms for Indians at the Aeroflot Open 2019 @ 01/03/2019 by Sagar Shah (en)
	Aeroflot 2019 R07: Sasikiran loses, Nihal beats Pragg @ 26/02/2019 by Sagar Shah (en)
	Aeroflot 2019 Round 2: Aravindh tricks his 2681 rated opponent in a pawn endgame @ 22/02/2019 by Sagar Shah (en)
	17th Aeroflot Open 2019: Catch all the live action here @ 19/02/2019 by Nongsha Angom (en)
	33 Indians will travel to Aeroflot Open 2019 fully sponsored by the Government @ 31/01/2019 by Shahid Ahmed (en)