Kolkata 2018 Round 5: Ivan Rozum shows you what the art of being means!

by Sagar Shah - 19/05/2018

The sole leader at the 3rd LIC Kolkata GM International 2018 is GM Ivan Rozum from Russia. Ivan has been showing phenomenal technique at this event beating all of his opponents in endgames. Against Deep Sengupta in the fifth round he gave a model presentation of how sometimes "being" in chess is more important than "doing". Ivan played perhaps one of the finest positional games of the tournament to outwit Deep Sengupta. Rozum is pursued by three players Amonatov, Srinath and Tukhaev on 4.5/5, with a huge number of players on 4.0/5. Detailed explanation of Rozum's win, pictures, videos and more from Kolkata.

Ivan Rozum is the sole leader with 5.0/5

Ivan Rozum fully focused as he beats Deep Sengupta in the fifth round of the Kolkata GM International 2018 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

"Chess for Zebras" is a fantastic book written by GM Jonathan Rowson. In it he mentions the difference between being and doing in chess. Here I produce one of the extracts from the book:

Once after winning a game Tony Miles was asked, how did he win the game, and he commented: "I did absolutely ** all and it proved to be enough!" This comment might seem a bit shocking, but you have to admit that it's also quite funny. The point is that Black lost the game; White didn't really win it. One reaction would be to think "So what? Sometimes you get lucky and your opponent makes it easy for you", but I think there is more to it than that. It is well-known that part of being a strong player is making other strong players look weak. Take Kasparov against your average 2600 GM or your average 2600 against your standard 1M, and so on. At every level of play, players who look good against weaker players are, in turn, made to look weak - nothing new there. But I believe part of the reason for this is that the stronger you get, the finer your feeling for the game and the more acutely you sense mistakes. More precisely, as you get better, you get better at avoiding mistakes, but you also come to realize how difficult it is to avoid them, so you develop a better sense of how to make your opponents go astray.

Improving your results is thus not just about playing better moves yourself, but encouraging, or even just allowing your opponent to make mistakes. What the above game suggests is that you don't always have to try very hard to do that! Moreover, sometimes trying hard is actually counter-productive. At his peak, Karpov seemed to exemplify this kind of intelligence. Indeed, Icelandic GM Hjartarson once described the experience of playing Karpov as follows: "Nothing happens, but you lose." Karpov has such a fine feeling for the coordination of the pieces that with a few delicate touches in the right places he could make his opponent's position collapse, when it had previously looked quite viable. Moreover, in the notes to one of his games against Kasparov, where he has the advantage but is ex- ploiting it in a leisurely way he writes: "Why hurry? Why worry? The fruit will ripen of its own accord".

How did Rozum win?

Ivan Rozum vs Deep Sengupta

In the opening the queens were exchanged. Rozum played the move a3. His idea was simple to play b4 and break Black's queenside structure and at the same time activate his g2 bishop.

The knight on a5 is a constant headache. You cannot push your b-pawn as c6 hangs and otherwise it is just impossible to kick the knight away! This knight on the rim is not dim!

Rozum exchanged off the dark squared bishops

Look at White's structure! Picture of perfection!

Rozum didn't do anything special. He just kept alternating his knight between a5 and c5

The knight was then shifted to f4 and the pawn was pushed to h4. White is doing nothing concrete yet, but just getting all of his resources ready for a further showdown.

Deep Sengupta is not one of those players who would sit quietly. He played e5, but it turned out to be an inaccuracy.

The knight nicely settled on the e4 square and no one in the world can now kick it out

The pawn move to h4 came to good use when Rozum pushed his pawn to h5 to create a second weakness!

Finally Deep cracked and Nd6 was a big blunder as Nc3 won an exchange! Within a few moves Rozum had the point in the bag!

Srinath managed to trick Abhijeet Gupta in time pressure to score the full point | Photo: Sagar Shah

Nigel Short was not too pleased with his draw against GM Lalith Babu | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Gukesh drew his game against his coach GM Vishnu Prasanna | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Experienced D.V. Prasad had a great start to the event with 3.0/4, but slumped to a defeat against IM Harsha Bharathakoti | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Photo gallery:

Dibyendu Barua interacts with Jennitha Anto about her game and how she is liking it in Kolkata | Photo: Sagar Shah

The visually challenged players of India thank GM Barua for his kind gesture of allowing them to play in the A category without any entry fee or lodging and boarding expenses | Photo: Sagar Shah

The ChessBase India stall is bumbling with people! | Photo: Sagar Shah

Nigel Short gets the ChessBase India t-shirt! As Nigel puts it, "He is not even the FIDE President and the bribery has begun!" | Photo: Sagar Shah

GM R.R. Laxman and Goa's talent Leon Mendonca exchange a few words after their game | Photo: Sagar Shah

Team ChessBase India - always smiling! | Photo: Sayan Bose

Video gallery by Shahid Ahmed:

Deep Sengupta resigns against Ivan Rozum

Abhijeet Gupta has just blundered a piece and is now losing the game!

Starting moments of round 5

The interesting pawn endgame between Raghunandan KS and Karthikeyan Murali

Results of round 5:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	6	GM	Rozum Ivan	2581	4	1 - 0	4	GM	Sengupta Deep	2563	8
2	12	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2531	3½	½ - ½	3½	GM	Short Nigel D	2656	1
3	2	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2619	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Narayanan Srinath	2525	14
4	4	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2608	3½	1 - 0	3½	IM	Nitin S.	2432	32
5	20	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2495	3½	½ - ½	3½	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2573	7
6	22	IM	Vignesh N R	2485	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2551	9
7	33	CM	Gukesh D	2426	3½	½ - ½	3	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2532	11
8	41	IM	Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari	2400	3	½ - ½	3	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2617	3
9	10	IM	Nihal Sarin	2551	3	1 - 0	3		Arjun Kalyan	2383	42
10	50	IM	Siva Mahadevan	2364	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Burmakin Vladimir	2528	13
11	54	FM	Rajdeep Sarkar	2355	3	½ - ½	3	GM	Shyam Sundar M.	2518	15
12	16	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2516	3	1 - 0	3		Sekar B	2304	63
13	51		Koustav Chatterjee	2364	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2512	17
14	53		Saravana Krishnan P.	2360	3	½ - ½	3	GM	Neverov Valeriy	2496	19
15	65	FM	Mohammad Fahad Rahman	2296	3	0 - 1	3	FM	Erigaisi Arjun	2488	21
16	77	IM	Prasad Devaki V	2284	3	0 - 1	3	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2463	25
17	89	CM	Kushagra Mohan	2256	3	½ - ½	3	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2456	27
18	98	IM	Suvrajit Saha	2217	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Neelotpal Das	2452	28
19	29	GM	Laxman R.R.	2444	3	1 - 0	3	CM	Mendonca Leon Luke	2122	134
20	100		Nguyen Phuoc Tam	2210	3	0 - 1	3	IM	Das Sayantan	2437	30

Rank after round 5:

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	w	we	w-we
1	6	GM	Rozum Ivan		RUS	2581	RUS	5,0	0,0	13,5	15,5	15,50	5	5	3,66	1,34
2	9	GM	Tukhaev Adam		UKR	2551	UKR	4,5	0,0	12,0	13,5	12,25	4	4,5	3,86	0,64
3	14	GM	Narayanan Srinath		IND	2525	AIR INDIA	4,5	0,0	12,0	13,0	11,25	4	4,5	3,40	1,10
4	4	GM	Amonatov Farrukh		TJK	2608	TJK	4,5	0,0	11,0	13,0	11,75	4	4,5	4,18	0,32
5	8	GM	Sengupta Deep		IND	2563	PSPB	4,0	0,0	14,5	17,0	12,00	4	4	3,61	0,39
6	21	FM	Erigaisi Arjun		IND	2488	TEL	4,0	0,0	14,0	16,5	11,50	4	4	3,52	0,48
7	1	GM	Short Nigel D		ENG	2656	ENG	4,0	0,0	13,5	15,5	12,00	3	4	4,01	-0,01
8	7	GM	Sandipan Chanda		IND	2573	WB	4,0	0,0	13,0	15,5	12,50	3	4	3,87	0,13
9	33	CM	Gukesh D		IND	2426	AP	4,0	0,0	13,0	15,0	11,50	3	4	2,90	1,10
10	30	IM	Das Sayantan		IND	2437	WB	4,0	0,0	12,5	15,0	11,75	3	4	3,94	0,06
11	17	GM	Tran Tuan Minh		VIE	2512	VIE	4,0	0,0	12,5	14,5	11,25	3	4	3,95	0,05
12	20	GM	Rahman Ziaur		BAN	2495	BAN	4,0	0,0	12,5	14,5	10,75	3	3	2,64	0,36
13	12	GM	Lalith Babu M R		IND	2531	PSPB	4,0	0,0	12,0	14,0	10,50	3	3	2,62	0,38
14	10	IM	Nihal Sarin		IND	2551	KER	4,0	0,0	11,5	14,0	11,25	3	4	4,14	-0,14
15	28	GM	Neelotpal Das		IND	2452	PSPB	4,0	0,0	11,5	14,0	11,00	3	4	3,86	0,14

Pairings for round 6:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	9	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2551	4½		5	GM	Rozum Ivan	2581	6
2	14	GM	Narayanan Srinath	2525	4½		4½	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2608	4
3	1	GM	Short Nigel D	2656	4		4	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2512	17
4	7	GM	Sandipan Chanda	2573	4		4	GM	Laxman R.R.	2444	29
5	8	GM	Sengupta Deep	2563	4		4	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2495	20
6	21	FM	Erigaisi Arjun	2488	4		4	IM	Nihal Sarin	2551	10
7	25	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2463	4		4	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2531	12
8	13	GM	Burmakin Vladimir	2528	4		4	CM	Gukesh D	2426	33
9	28	GM	Neelotpal Das	2452	4		4	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2516	16
10	30	IM	Das Sayantan	2437	4		3½	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2619	2

Room mates Adam Tukhaev and Ivan Rozum will fight it out against each other on the top board today!

Articles related to the tournament:

Live Games from 3rd International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament 2018

FIDE Presidential candidate GM Nigel Short headlines LIC 3rd Kolkata Open 2018

Round 1: Short's last holiday event before campaign

Round 2: Vantika Agrawal shows how to beat a 2600+ GM

Round 3: And then there were eight

Round 4: Gukesh beats Aravindh Chithambaram