Chennai 2018 Round 2+3: 12-year-old Divya Deshmukh beats first GM of her chess career

by Sagar Shah - 20/01/2018

It was a double round day at the Chennai Open 2018. 17 players are on 100% score with 3.0/3. The number of upsets have not been that huge as compared to the previous grandmaster events. The biggest news of the day was Divya Deshmukh beating the first GM opponent - Vietnamese Hoa Nguyen. We not only bring you the final moments of her victory in video format, but also in-depth analysis with the 12-year-old. Timur Gareyev continued to entertain the audience with his dashing style of play. He is surely looking like a hot contender for winning the title at the Chennai Open 2018. We have the detailed report from Chennai.

What is it like beating the first GM of your chess career? Not many people can tell you about it! Grandmasters are those species who play chess at an altogether different level. But for talents like Divya Deshmukh, it is only a matter of time. For the multiple times national, Asian and world champion, the wonder girl from Nagpur, this came at an age of 12 years! And she did it at the third round of the Chennai International 2018 by beating the strong Vietnamese GM Hoa Nguyen.

Divya's first win against a grandmaster - Hoa Nguyen in the third round of Chennai Open 2018

The background:

Divya had played against GM Hoa Nguyen in Mumbai IIFLW International and was completely winning. She had prematurely agreed to a draw and was quite angry with this fact. When the pairings of the third round of the Chennai Open were out she decided to play her best and try to not commit the same mistake which she did in Mumbai.

The Opening:

In a common Catalan position Hoa Nguyen had two options Qe8 or Qd6. Qe8 is the common move and it forces White to take on e7 because the bishop would escape to d6. However, after Qd6 the bishop cannot go anywhere! Divya was about to take on e7 when she realized this and hence made the strong move Qa4! This, she figured out on the board.

The Middlegame:

Very smart. As Divya mentioned after the game. The move Bf4 was made to provoke the move g5 and create additional weaknesses in Black's camp.

...Rad8 was an error by Hoa Nguyen as now Nc5 came in. Perhaps he missed that Qxe2 is met with Rf2! There were some tricks after Nc5 with Qd5 Nxb7 Nd4! But Divya kept everything under control, won a pawn and then made the wise decision of trading down pieces.

With Qc2 started the technical phase where a lot of people who are lower rated than the grandmasters keep making mistakes and draw the game or even lose it. But not Divya!

The Endgame:

Divya played the position with great care, making sure that none of her pieces were badly placed and at the same time calculating all the basic tactics. It was a great technical effort by Divya as she never let her opponent get even the slightest of a chance to play for a draw.

Final moments of Divya scoring her win over GM Hoa Nguyen

You get instant fame when you beat a GM at 12 years!

After her victory, Divya showed her game with in-depth analysis. While watching you can just marvel at the fact as to how this girl can remember her calculations with such clarity. She could narrate all the lines and also where improvements could have been sought for her opponent.

The game between Divya and Hoa Nguyen was not on a live board. But you can replay it here on ChessBase India (exclusively!):

Timur Gareyev keeps entertaining the audience with his audacious play!

In the morning against Mrudul Dehankar, he opened with the normal English Opening. Played three move - c4 Nc3 and Nf3 and then all of a sudden pushed his g-pawn down the board. Not just one square but two!

The move g4 has been played before, but it definitely would not have been pleasant for Mrudul to face it on the board without any preparation. As it turned out, she played really well and put some pressure on Timur. One of the common things that she didn't fall for was passivity. Mrudul kept making active moves and this made Timur regret his decision of playing g4 as he said after the game. The game later went in the favour of the American, but it was a good effort by the Nagpur girl.

Just when you thought that things couldn't get crazier than this, Timur went for another crazy idea in the third round against B. Vignesh - Qf6?!? in the Guioco Piano.

What? Did he just move the queen to f6 instead of his knight?

Now, you don't want to get such positions with black if your name is not Timur Gareyev!

11-year-old Kushagra Mohan is showing some solid performances in this circuit. He drew against a GM in the Delhi Open and now against GM Marat Dzhumaev in the third round in Chennai.

Another big talent Pranav. V tried his best against Tiviakov, but couldn't hold the Dutch grandmaster

In the battle between two high speed players Ratnakaran and Ravi Hegde, the game ended in a draw

Mini-upset: Raghunandan K.S. lost his game to Nikhil Dixit

GM R.R.Laxman managed to beat Sankarsha Shelke

When the opponent's king is hyperactive! Khusenkhojaev trying to figure out what is to be done.

The ChessBase India t-shirts are everywhere! Get one for yourself, now!

Seen in action after a long duration is IM Rahul Shetty

Results of round two:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Gareyev Timur	2605	1	1 - 0	1	WCM	Mrudul Dehankar	2098	74
2	3	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	1	1 - 0	1		Bala Kannamma P	2077	76
3	71	WFM	Saranya J	2102	1	½ - ½	1	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	4
4	5	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2570	1	1 - 0	1	WFM	Tarini Goyal	2071	78
5	73		Thanki Hemal Karsanji	2101	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	6
6	75		Manu David Suthandram R	2081	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	7
7	9	GM	Pruijssers Roeland	2536	1	1 - 0	1		Chaithanyaa K G	2060	82
8	77		Mythireyan P	2077	1	½ - ½	1	IM	Karthikeyan P.	2497	10
9	79		Nguyen Phuoc Tam	2068	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Horvath Adam	2484	12
10	13	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2476	1	1 - 0	1	CM	Rajarishi Karthi	2050	84
11	81		Balkishan A.	2061	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2475	14
12	15	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2462	1	1 - 0	1	AGM	Tarun Kanyamarala	2031	86
13	83	WIM	Chitlange Sakshi	2057	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Czebe Attila	2458	16
14	17	IM	Visakh N R	2457	1	1 - 0	1		Barath Kalyan M	2022	88
15	85		Soham Datar	2032	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2434	18
16	19	GM	Laxman R.R.	2434	1	1 - 0	1		Chittal Sairaj	2015	90
17	87		Pranesh M	2031	1	0 - 1	1	IM	Nitin S.	2422	20
18	21	IM	Llaneza Vega Marcos	2421	1	1 - 0	1		Gaikwad Siddhant	2009	92
19	89		Sibi Visal R	2020	1	½ - ½	1		Arjun Kalyan	2407	22
20	23	IM	Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari	2402	1	1 - 0	1		Mohite Ranveer	1997	94

Results of round three:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	37		Vignesh B	2277	2	0 - 1	2	GM	Gareyev Timur	2605	1
2	38		Pranav V	2275	2	0 - 1	2	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	3
3	40	IM	Praveen Kumar C	2241	2	0 - 1	2	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2570	5
4	6	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	2	1 - 0	2	FM	Maheswaran P.	2240	41
5	7	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	2	1 - 0	2		Ajay Karthikeyan	2224	43
6	45		Harikrishnan.A.Ra	2222	2	½ - ½	2	GM	Pruijssers Roeland	2536	9
7	12	GM	Horvath Adam	2484	2	1 - 0	2		Masango Spencer	2215	49
8	46	IM	Murali Krishnan B T	2221	2	0 - 1	2	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2476	13
9	14	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2475	2	1 - 0	2		Bhambure Shantanu	2173	53
10	48		Mithil Ajgaonkar	2219	2	½ - ½	2	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2462	15
11	16	GM	Czebe Attila	2458	2	½ - ½	2		Phoobalan P.	2158	57
12	52		Tiwari Arjun	2179	2	½ - ½	2	IM	Visakh N R	2457	17
13	18	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2434	2	½ - ½	2	CM	Kushagra Mohan	2150	59
14	60		Shelke Sankarsha	2148	2	0 - 1	2	GM	Laxman R.R.	2434	19
15	20	IM	Nitin S.	2422	2	½ - ½	2		Hari Madhavan N B	2112	67
16	62		Joshi Govind Ballabh	2146	2	0 - 1	2	IM	Llaneza Vega Marcos	2421	21
17	64		Dixit Nikhil	2139	2	1 - 0	2	IM	Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari	2402	23
18	27	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2372	2	½ - ½	2	IM	Hegde Ravi Gopal	2105	69
19	28	IM	Sangma Rahul	2332	2	1 - 0	2		Manish Anto Cristiano F	2012	91
20	70	WIM	Michelle Catherina P	2104	2	0 - 1	2	FM	Hafiz Arif Abdul	2324	29

Ranking after round 3:

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5
1	3	GM	Tiviakov Sergei		NED	2584	NED	3,0	0,0	4,0	6,0	6,00	3,0
	13	FM	Karthik Venkataraman		IND	2476	AP	3,0	0,0	4,0	6,0	6,00	3,0
3	14	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.		IND	2475	ICF	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3,0
	29	FM	Hafiz Arif Abdul		INA	2324	INA	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3,0
	64		Dixit Nikhil		IND	2139	MAH	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3,0
6	6	GM	Sivuk Vitaly		UKR	2550	UKR	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3,0
	19	GM	Laxman R.R.		IND	2434	ICF	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3,0
	21	IM	Llaneza Vega Marcos		ESP	2421	ESP	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3,0
	34		Muthaiah Al		IND	2291	TN	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3,0
	35	IM	Deshmukh Anup		IND	2285	MAH	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3,0
11	30		Saravana Krishnan P.		IND	2323	TN	3,0	0,0	3,5	5,0	5,00	3,0
12	5	GM	Tukhaev Adam		UKR	2570	UKR	3,0	0,0	3,5	4,5	4,50	3,0
	28	IM	Sangma Rahul		IND	2332	RLY	3,0	0,0	3,5	4,5	4,50	3,0
	36	FM	Gajwa Ankit		IND	2284	MP	3,0	0,0	3,5	4,5	4,50	3,0
15	1	GM	Gareyev Timur		USA	2605	USA	3,0	0,0	3,0	4,0	4,00	3,0
	7	GM	Tran Tuan Minh		VIE	2548	VIE	3,0	0,0	3,0	4,0	4,00	3,0
	12	GM	Horvath Adam		HUN	2484	HUN	3,0	0,0	3,0	4,0	4,00	3,0
18	57		Phoobalan P.		IND	2158	ICF	2,5	0,0	4,5	6,0	4,75	2,0
19	9	GM	Pruijssers Roeland		NED	2536	NED	2,5	0,0	4,5	5,5	4,25	2,0
	15	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad		TJK	2462	TJK	2,5	0,0	4,5	5,5	4,25	2,0

Pairings for round 4:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Gareyev Timur	2605	3		3	IM	Sangma Rahul	2332	28
2	3	GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	3		3		Saravana Krishnan P.	2323	30
3	5	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2570	3		3		Muthaiah Al	2291	34
4	19	GM	Laxman R.R.	2434	3		3	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	6
5	21	IM	Llaneza Vega Marcos	2421	3		3	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2548	7
6	29	FM	Hafiz Arif Abdul	2324	3		3	GM	Horvath Adam	2484	12
7	13	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2476	3		3	FM	Gajwa Ankit	2284	36
8	35	IM	Deshmukh Anup	2285	3		3	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2475	14
9	2	GM	Rozum Ivan	2595	2½		3		Dixit Nikhil	2139	64
10	4	GM	Solodovnichenko Yuri	2571	2½		2½		Harikrishnan.A.Ra	2222	45