Levon Aronian wins Gibraltar Masters 2018

by Sagar Shah - 03/02/2018

He is one of the most loved characters in the chess world. As Garry Kasparov said, "The world is a better place when Levon Aronian is playing good chess!" It was his first attempt at the Gibraltar Chess Festival and Levon Aronian did it! He won the event in style beating Richard Rapport and MVL in the tiebreaks! For Indians, Abhijeet Gupta showed a solid performance scoring 7.0/10 and finishing ninth. GM norm was scored by Prithu Gupta and IM norm by Raunak Sadhwani. Players like Debashis Das, M.R. Venkatesh, Hemant Sharma performed admirably, much above their rating. We have the detailed final report from Gibraltar.

The last round of the Gibraltar Masters, the tenth one, began with five players on 7.0/9 and fifteen on 6.5/9. At the end of the round we had seven players on 7.5/10 - Nakamura, MVL, Rapport, Aronian, Adams, Le Quang Liem and Vitiugovv. The first four players based on the rating performance tiebreak were selected for the playoffs.

It was going to be an exciting semi-final with Nakamura taking on MVL and Aronian facing Rapport

Aronian came to the last day in his favourite cat t-shirt. Unlike the World Cup 2017, he was wearing the blazer! Aronian beat Rapport 2-0 in the 10+5 tiebreaks but it was by no means a one-way stream!

In the first game, Aronian was clearly on the defensive with Rapport (White) having the bishop pair. But he defended staunchly and managed to trick his opponent in time pressure.

In the second game Aronian gave his opponent absolutely no chances and won in clean style:

"We both are playing each other in the tiebreaks!" MVL tells Naka

The first two games ended in draws. The third one was the decisive one, filled with great drama that MVL was able beat Nakamura in. In fact the American was clearly better for the major part of the game, but in time pressure it all went wrong for the defending champion. MVL won the game with some nice knight jumps!

In a must-win scenario Nakamura tried all that he could but was unable to shake his French opponent who maintained his cool and drew his game

It was now a repeat of the World Cup 2017 semi-finals tie-break! Aronian vs MVL!

The first three games were all drawn, with both players being evenly matched. In the fourth game Levon played in classy positional style, giving absolutely no chances to his opponent right from the opening until the endgame and scoring the full point, winning the tournament! It was a game where the Armenian showed what a classy player he is!

Interview with the champion!

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave speaks after finishing second

MVL - second, Nakamura-third and Richard Rapport - fourth

The Champion - Levon Aronian!

Aronian won the tournament, while the best woman prize went to Pia Cramling!

Pia Cramling speaks to Tania Sachdev after a fantastic performance!

Abhijeet Gupta was the best performer for Indians as he scored 7.0/10 and finished ninth

Prithu Gupta lost the last round to Lalith Babu but he had already achieved his GM norm and IM title

Scoring his second IM norm - 12-year-old Raunak Sadhwani

Hemant Sharma needed to win the last round to get his GM norm. He drew and missed it narrowly. However, a performance of 2570 is something to be proud of!

Lance Henderson played the tournament of his life beating Huschenbeth, Papp, Huzman and Ju Wenjun. This was after he had drawn the first round to Dev Shah, rated 1977!

Debashis is the only Indian player apart from Abhijeet Gupta who remained unbeaten in the tournament. His last game against Sandipan Chanda is a show of wonderful positional chess:

If you looked at the game carefully, you will realize that the two key moments of the game happened on the d6 square. The queen sacrifice and then the king entering in the position which led to resignation!

Qd6!! led to a forced queen exchange after Qf8.

King entering d6 completed the picture of domination!

GM M.R. Venkatesh played against some of the finest women players in the world. He drew against Ju Wenjun, Lagno and Anna Muzychuk and beat Alexandra Kosteniuk in the last round!

Player overview for India

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Pts.	Rk.	Group
5	GM	Harikrishna P.	2745	IND	½	½	1	1	1	½	0	0	1	1	6,5	39	Masters
25	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	2646	IND	1	1	½	½	0	1	1	1	0	1	7,0	16	Masters
31	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2610	IND	1	½	½	1	1	½	½	1	½	½	7,0	9	Masters
37	GM	Gopal G.N.	2593	IND	½	1	½	1	½	½	0	1	½	1	6,5	45	Masters
42	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2579	IND	½	½	1	1	1	1	0	½	½	0	6,0	56	Masters
45	GM	Narayanan S. L.	2573	IND	1	1	½	½	1	0	1	½	½	1	7,0	23	Masters
63	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2542	IND	1	1	½	½	0	½	1	0	1	1	6,5	36	Masters
68	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2533	IND	1	1	½	0	½	1	½	½	1	½	6,5	42	Masters
71	IM	Nihal Sarin	2524	IND	1	½	½	0	½	1	1	1	½	½	6,5	46	Masters
74	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	2515	IND	1	½	½	½	½	1	1	0	½	0	5,5	92	Masters
81	GM	Debashis Das	2501	IND	1	1	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	1	7,0	10	Masters
82	GM	Gagare Shardul	2494	IND	1	1	½	½	1	0	0	1	½	0	5,5	81	Masters
102	IM	Prasanna Raghuram Rao	2458	IND	1	0	1	1	0	½	½	1	½	1	6,5	44	Masters
108	GM	Venkatesh M.R.	2445	IND	1	1	½	½	½	0	1	½	½	1	6,5	33	Masters
114	IM	Swayams Mishra	2432	IND	1	½	1	0	½	0	½	½	½	1	5,5	103	Masters
119	IM	Raja Harshit	2427	IND	½	1	½	0	½	1	0	1	½	0	5,0	135	Masters
136	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2380	IND	1	½	½	½	1	0	½	½	1	0	5,5	93	Masters
139	FM	Prithu Gupta	2373	IND	½	½	1	1	½	½	½	0	1	0	5,5	83	Masters
149	IM	Hemant Sharma (Del)	2348	IND	½	0	1	1	½	½	½	½	½	½	5,5	85	Masters
159	IM	Padmini Rout	2325	IND	0	1	0	1	1	0	½	1	0	0	4,5	160	Masters
162	FM	Sadhwani Raunak	2321	IND	½	0	1	½	½	½	1	0	½	0	4,5	159	Masters
176	IM	Mohota Nisha	2269	IND	½	0	1	½	0	1	1	0	½	0	4,5	164	Masters
186	WIM	Nandhidhaa Pv	2238	IND	0	1	½	0	1	0	1	½	1	0	5,0	146	Masters
228	WFM	Cholleti Sahajasri	2083	IND	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	3,0	241	Masters
230	WIM	Tejaswini Sagar	2081	IND	½	½	½	1	0	0	½	0	1	½	4,5	170	Masters
247	WIM	Gagare Shalmali	2001	IND	½	0	0	0	1	½	0	½	½	1	4,0	210	Masters
254	CM	Dev Shah	1977	IND	½	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	½	3,0	255	Masters
268		Mayank Pal	1834	IND	½	0	0	0	½	½	½	½	½	1	4,0	222	Masters

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1
1	3	GM	Nakamura Hikaru	USA	2781	7,5	2822
2	12	GM	Rapport Richard	HUN	2700	7,5	2763
3	2	GM	Vachier-Lagrave Maxime	FRA	2793	7,5	2759
4	1	GM	Aronian Levon	ARM	2797	7,5	2746
5	7	GM	Vitiugov Nikita	RUS	2732	7,5	2731
	11	GM	Adams Michael	ENG	2709	7,5	2731
7	6	GM	Le Quang Liem	VIE	2737	7,5	2713
8	16	GM	Howell David W L	ENG	2682	7,0	2760
9	31	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2610	7,0	2732
10	81	GM	Debashis Das	IND	2501	7,0	2728
11	9	GM	Duda Jan-Krzysztof	POL	2724	7,0	2713
	33	GM	Oparin Grigoriy	RUS	2607	7,0	2713
13	10	GM	Wang Hao	CHN	2711	7,0	2710
14	32	GM	Vocaturo Daniele	ITA	2609	7,0	2679
15	14	GM	Gelfand Boris	ISR	2697	7,0	2673
16	25	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	IND	2646	7,0	2672
17	19	GM	Sutovsky Emil	ISR	2673	7,0	2668
18	15	GM	Dubov Daniil	RUS	2694	7,0	2658
19	116		Henderson De La Fuente Lance	ESP	2429	7,0	2642
20	93	GM	Kobo Ori	ISR	2477	7,0	2638

The first four places are not in the right order because of the tiebreaks, as explained at the start of the article, the rest of the standings are correct!

A huge congratulations to the entire team of Gibraltar Chess Festival led by tournament director Stuart Conquest for another splendid tournament.