Chennai 2018 Round 1: GMs struggle in India's chess capital

by Sagar Shah - 19/01/2018

From the capital of India our attention now shifts to the chess capital of India - the Chennai International 2018. We have 266 players, players from 22 countries, 16 grandmasters and 19 International Masters. There is no rating cut off and the event is open for all. It meant that in the first round 1800+ players were facing 2500+ grandmasters. Many of the games were one-sided battles. But because you are in the chess capital of the country a few upsets were sure to happen. And it did! Suat Atalik lost to Thrish Karthik, Harshal Patil drew against Ivan Rozum and Anup Shankar missed many winning opportunities before splitting the point against Hoa Nguyen. A detailed report rich with pictures, videos, analysis and more!

Who are the top players at the Chennai Open 2018?

Gone are the days when lower rated players are scared of their grandmaster opponents. Playing against an opponent rated 700 point above them is a chance to prove their mettle. A chance to show to the world that they too are capable of playing good chess. The tougher the challenge, greater is the glory.

The last nine editions of the Chennai Open have been held in the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. But this year we have it at the Vijay Park Hotel.

The entrance of the Vijay Park Hotel

There are two playing halls for the 266 participants. The first hall (above) has 60 tables, while the remaining are the second hall.

This change in the venue created some distress for the players from La Réunion. La Réunion is a French island in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar. It's just five hours away from Chennai. Six players from there decided to play at the Chennai Open. However, they went to the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. When they realized that the tournament was in Vijay Park, they rushed here but it was too late. The walk over time of 30 minutes was over and the players had to forfeit their games. The manager of the delegation took the responsibility for this situation.

The French players standing outside the hall, not very happy with the situation

We caught up with the head of the delegation and he tells us about the situation

Coming back the event, there were three GMs who faced a rough time in the first round: Suat Atalik who lost to Trish Karthik, Ivan Rozum who drew against Harshal Patil and Hoa Nguyen who drew against Anup Shankar.

Suat Atalik is an extremely strong grandmaster. He usually doesn't lose to lower rated opponents. But in the first round, he seemed completely out of sorts.

Bxf6 is an interesting line in the King's Indian that I urge you to have a deeper look into

Atalik, who was white, was in complete control of the position

I liked this idea of breaking on the other side very much.

All of White's pieces are better than their counterparts

With f4 started the play where things got really sharp. White could have won the game, but instead went wrong and then it was a draw, but....

...with Bb5 Atalik blundered big time and Black simply picked up the bishop with ...Ra5!

Ivan Rozum has failed to fire on this Indian trip and was very much looking forward to Chennai, but the start was slow as he drew against Harshal Patil

I consider Benoni to be a dangerous opening. Not just for the player with the white pieces, but also for black. The strategic risk that Black takes by weakening his d6 pawn is sometimes too much! When a stronger player essays the Benoni, it is understandable. He wants to beat his opponent in a complex game. However, when Harshal Patil (rated 1850) played the Benoni against Ivan Rozum I surely had my doubts. I felt that Harshal would be demolished by Ivan. It turned out that Patil was a tough nut to crack as he hung on. He was worse on many occasions, but he kept finding the resources and eventually drew the game. It was a street fight and for a player who was 750 points rated lower than his opponent, this was a great result.

Harshal Patil from Nashik doing a good job by holding Ivan Rozum

It has become customary for Hoa Nguyen to start off slowly at Indian tournaments. He began with a draw against Anup Shankar.

Things could have been much worse for Hoa Nguyen had Anup Shankar taken full advantage of his opponent's mistakes. Anup played the opening beautifully gaining a great position. I would like to specially discuss the following position:

White played the move Rf8+ here. I am of the opinion that White should not complicate the position when he is in control. Instead just R1f2 Re3 R2f3 followed by pushing the h and g pawns would already giving White a winning advantage. The point is that when you are ahead in material, you must maintain control. Rf8+ enters into a race where White is capturing Black's queenside and Black is getting to White's pawns. This is not something you want when you are winning. In the game, this turned out to be a good decision because Hoa Nguyen blundered and it was an easy win.

Rb8! is just finishing off the game. The threat is a7 and a8. So Black has to play ...Ra2 and now d6 Rxa6 and d7. White is already winning! Anup missed this chance and also another...

Here Rxh7 followed by d7 was very strong. But Anup played d7 and after Ke7 Black was quite out of danger

The top seed and the only 2600+ player at the event Timur Gareyev | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Adam Tukhaev will be looking to weave some of he magic that has helped him win in India on muttiple occasions | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Yuri Solodovnichenko - always a fierce opponent! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Can ChessBase's famous author Sergei Tiviakov score victory on Indian soil? | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The Rajnikant of Indian chess now has the home advantage! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Vietnamese GM Tran Tuan Minh being photographed by two of the best chess photographers. Amruta Mokal and David Llada. This is Amruta's output: | Photo: Sagar Shah

GM Tran Tuan Minh. We will ask David for his photographer! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

P. Karthikeyan's house is very close to the venue, so close that he can come walking. He is playing at the event with his wife Harini Sankaran. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

If you are in Chennai, you must eat the Dosa. Either on the streets, or if you want to play it safe then in Saravana Bhavan which is just a kilometre and a half away from the venue. | Photo: Sagar Shah

Results of round one:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	134		Kumar S.	1852	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Gareyev Timur	2605	1
2	2	GM	Rozum Ivan	2595	0	½ - ½	0		Patil Harshal	1850	135
3	136	WFM	Lakshmi C	1836	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	3
4	4	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	0	1 - 0	0		Kumthekar Shubham	1825	137
5	138		Ghelani Dhairya	1822	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2570	5
6	6	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	0	1 - 0	0		Godson Merlin E	1818	139
7	140		Triton Maxime	1813	0	- - +	0	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	7
8	8	GM	Atalik Suat	2538	0	0 - 1	0		Thrish Karthik	1811	141
9	142		Kanishk S K	1808	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Pruijssers Roeland	2536	9
10	10	IM	Karthikeyan P.	2497	0	1 - 0	0		Rohit S	1808	143
11	144		Anup Shankar R	1805	0	½ - ½	0	GM	Nguyen Duc Hoa	2490	11
12	12	GM	Horvath Adam	2484	0	1 - 0	0		Sanjay Thiruvengadam	1801	145
13	146		Hari R Chandran	1795	0	0 - 1	0	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2476	13
14	14	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2475	0	1 - 0	0		Samdani Sahil Sagar	1794	147
15	148		Navaratnam Rohan Shan Tze	1793	0	0 - 1	0	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2462	15
16	16	GM	Czebe Attila	2458	0	1 - 0	0	AGM	Yuvan Bharathi K S	1792	149
17	150		Tarimo Didik Widiarso	1791	0	0 - 1	0	IM	Visakh N R	2457	17
18	18	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2434	0	1 - 0	0		Nitin Shankar Madhu	1789	151
19	152		Thaga Sheriff M	1789	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Laxman R.R.	2434	19
20	20	IM	Nitin S.	2422	0	1 - 0	0		Afzal Kazi Md. Mahbub	1779	153

Pairings of round two:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Gareyev Timur	2605	1		1	WCM	Mrudul Dehankar	2098	74
2	3	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	1		1		Bala Kannamma P	2077	76
3	71	WFM	Saranya J	2102	1		1	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	4
4	5	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2570	1		1	WFM	Tarini Goyal	2071	78
5	73		Thanki Hemal Karsanji	2101	1		1	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	6
6	75		Manu David Suthandram R	2081	1		1	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	7
7	9	GM	Pruijssers Roeland	2536	1		1		Chaithanyaa K G	2060	82
8	77		Mythireyan P	2077	1		1	IM	Karthikeyan P.	2497	10
9	79		Nguyen Phuoc Tam	2068	1		1	GM	Horvath Adam	2484	12
10	13	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2476	1		1	CM	Rajarishi Karthi	2050	84
11	81		Balkishan A.	2061	1		1	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2475	14
12	15	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2462	1		1	AGM	Tarun Kanyamarala	2031	86
13	83	WIM	Chitlange Sakshi	2057	1		1	GM	Czebe Attila	2458	16
14	17	IM	Visakh N R	2457	1		1		Barath Kalyan M	2022	88
15	85		Soham Datar	2032	1		1	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2434	18
16	19	GM	Laxman R.R.	2434	1		1		Chittal Sairaj	2015	90
17	87		Pranesh M	2031	1		1	IM	Nitin S.	2422	20
18	21	IM	Llaneza Vega Marcos	2421	1		1		Gaikwad Siddhant	2009	92
19	89		Sibi Visal R	2020	1		1		Arjun Kalyan	2407	22
20	23	IM	Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari	2402	1		1		Mohite Ranveer	1997	94