Mumbai IIFLW Open Round 1+2: Beware of the top board!

by Sagar Shah - 01/01/2018

The setting of the EKA by IIFLIM 3rd Mumbai International Open 2017-18 is bit unusual. You have this big stage on one side of the playing hall and there is only the top board placed on it. Rest of the players are playing in the normal playing arena. However, we have found out that it is not easy to be the fancied player and play on the top board. In the first round, Abhijeet Gupta very nearly lost to Kiran Manisha Mohanty and in round two Timur Gareyev had to bite the dust against Adham Kandil. Ivan Rozum will be seen in action on the top board today and it will be interesting to see if he can maintain his pole position.

Thanks to the accelerated pairing in the first two rounds we have seen quite a few interesting match-ups in the Mumbai International 2017-18 tournament. In the first round itself the game between Abhijeet Gupta and Kiran Manisha Mohanty reached a very interesting stage:

The perfect handshake captured by Niklesh Jain | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Black (Abhijeet Gupta) has just moved his knight to f4 and he seems to be in control. However, Kiran shocked everyone by taking the pawn on a6. Do you see the point of her move?

IM Vishal Sareen explains the point behind the move Bxa6

Kiran Manisha Mohanty played an inspired game to very nearly beat Abhijeet Gupta | Photo: Amruta Mokal

This is the first time that ChessBase India is bringing you live coverage of the event. In the first round Abhijeet Gupta joined us after his game: | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Abhijeet explains the point behind his moves in his game against Kiran Manisha Mohanty

Abhijeet also made it a point to visit our studio when he won his game in the second round against Atul Dahale. Gupta sacrificed a pawn for compensation and was able to outplay his opponent in a complicated position:

Abhijeet Gupta shows his win over Atul Dahale

Atul Dahale did lose to Abhijeet, but he played quite well to split the point against experienced GM Suat Atalik in round one. In fact Atul was winning against Atalik. However, he wasn't able to break through. The Duo came to the analysis room after the game and created a very instructive chess session.

Atalik and Dahale analyze their crazy Grunfeld game

In the second round Adham Kandil of Egypt played a fine game to beat Timur Gareyev | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Rajnikanth of chess Deepan Chakkravarthy is in great form. He recently won the Open rating tournament that was held in Ahmedabad along with the World Youth Olympiad 2017 and now he is on 2.0/2 | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Tarini Goyal won her first round against IM Aditya Udeshi scoring a big upset. Aditya is playing a competitive tournament after a long. He works at the IIFLW itself, so this is a tournament where he would easily get leave from work! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Parham Maghsoodloo, the talented Iranian grandmaster, is playing in India for the first time. It would be interesting to keep a track of his progress. | Photo: Niklesh Jain

IPCA World Champion Shashikant Kutwal is currently on 1.5/2 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Harsha Bharathakoti and Snehal Bhosale realize that chess is not an easy game! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

GM Dibyendu Barua is playing in a rating tournament after 2014. He began with 1.5/2 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Barua's wife Saheli Dhar is also playing after a big gap and is currently on 0.0/2. Barua's have also come with their son Dishan who is playing here and has scored a half point after two rounds. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Kriti Patel won the first round against an opponent who rated 300 points above her. She came to the studio to show us her win: | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The prodigious young talent Divya Deshmukh lost her second round to Swapnil Dhopade, but it was not before she had snatched half a point from Hoa Nguyen - the winner of Bhopal International 2017 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Saurabh Anand shows his win over GM Attila Czebe

A small capsule that gives you a feel of what happened in round one

Aditya Mittal played an exciting game to draw against GM Shyam Sundar in the second round. We bring you the live feed of the game: | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Results of round one

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	78	WGM	Kiran Manisha Mohanty	IND	2159	0	½ - ½	0	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2610	1
2	2	GM	Gareyev Timur	USA	2606	0	1 - 0	0		Goswami Vedant	IND	2157	80
3	81		Manush Shah	IND	2148	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Rozum Ivan	RUS	2595	3
4	4	GM	Tukhaev Adam	UKR	2575	0	1 - 0	0		Balasubramaniam H	IND	2147	82
5	83		Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri	IND	2141	0	0 - 1	0	GM	David Alberto	ITA	2571	5
6	6	GM	Maghsoodloo Parham	IRI	2570	0	1 - 0	0	WFM	Jishitha D	IND	2140	84
7	85		Dahale Atul	IND	2140	0	½ - ½	0	GM	Atalik Suat	TUR	2545	7
8	8	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	VIE	2544	0	½ - ½	0	CM	Rohith Krishna S	IND	2139	86
9	87		Dixit Nikhil	IND	2132	0	½ - ½	0	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	IND	2533	9
10	10	GM	Shyam Sundar M.	IND	2527	0	1 - 0	0	CM	Mendonca Leon Luke	IND	2130	88

Results of round two

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	45	IM	Kandil Adham	EGY	2312	1	1 - 0	1	GM	Gareyev Timur	USA	2606	2
2	3	GM	Rozum Ivan	RUS	2595	1	1 - 0	1		Navalgund Niranjan	IND	2312	46
3	47	IM	Rathnakaran K.	IND	2307	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Tukhaev Adam	UKR	2575	4
4	5	GM	David Alberto	ITA	2571	1	1 - 0	1		Koustav Chatterjee	IND	2288	52
5	49	FM	Shailesh Dravid	IND	2306	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Maghsoodloo Parham	IRI	2570	6
6	51	CM	Aditya Mittal	IND	2288	1	½ - ½	1	GM	Shyam Sundar M.	IND	2527	10
7	53	IM	Deshmukh Anup	IND	2283	1	½ - ½	1	IM	Karthikeyan P.	IND	2497	12
8	55	WGM	Swati Ghate	IND	2277	1	0 - 1	1	IM	Yeoh Li Tian	MAS	2480	14
9	15	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2473	1	1 - 0	1		Pranav V	IND	2263	56
10	57		Singh S. Vikramjit	IND	2256	1	0 - 1	1	GM	Horvath Adam	HUN	2473	16

Pairings of round three:

Round 3 on 2018/01/01 at 04.00 PM

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	158		Om Kharola	IND	1884	2		2	GM	Rozum Ivan	RUS	2595	3
2	4	GM	Tukhaev Adam	UKR	2575	2		2		Sarvesh Kumar A	IND	1877	159
3	162		Randil Lakshitha	SRI	1860	2		2	GM	David Alberto	ITA	2571	5
4	6	GM	Maghsoodloo Parham	IRI	2570	2		2		Jayachandra Srinivas Vellanki	IND	1834	168
5	14	IM	Yeoh Li Tian	MAS	2480	2		2	WFM	Bommini Mounika Akshaya	IND	1829	169
6	174		Ghelani Dhairya	IND	1809	2		2	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2473	15
7	16	GM	Horvath Adam	HUN	2473	2		2		Mahitosh Dey	IND	1820	173
8	176		Rohit S	IND	1808	2		2	GM	Deviatkin Andrei	RUS	2471	17
9	178		Dave Sneh	IND	1805	2		2	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	IND	2451	19
10	22	IM	Nitin S.	IND	2441	2		2		Kanishk S K	IND	1808	175

ChessBase India wishes you a very happy new year | Photo: Amruta Mokal