Nationals 2018 Round 8: Vaibhav Suri's beautiful middlegame play

by Sagar Shah - 14/12/2018

The National Championship 2018 consists of such great players that there are beautiful games being played in each round. It's quite a difficult task to choose the best game of the day, but in the eighth round it was clearly GM Vaibhav Suri who took the honours with some fantastic middlegame play and showing great alertness to beat his strong opponent Swapnil Dhopade. We now have four players in the lead GM Vaibhav Suri, Aravindh Chithambaram, Stany GA and Deep Sengupta. They are followed by seven players on 6.0/8. Specially to note is the performance of veteran GM Pravin Thipsay. An illustrated report from Jammu on round 8 of the National Championship 2018.

GM Vaibhav Suri scored a big win by beating Swapnil Dhopade and joining the leaders | Lennart Ootes

Swapnil Dhopade vs Vaibhav Suri, Round 8

Black has just moved his rook to c7. How did Vaibhav take advantage of this fact?

Black is a pawn up, but White's play is very easy. Mainly because the black pawns are very weak and the bishop on e6 is passive. White plays his pieces on dark squares and puts a lot of pressure on Black's position. But breaking through is not easy. In the above position Vaibhav found an excellent combination starting with e4!

A fantastic move! fxe4 is not possible as the queen is hanging. Swapnil took dxe4 and...

...Vaibhav took the bishop on e6! Now fxe6 loses to Rd7+ and Qxe6 as was played in the game is met with Rd6! attacking the queen and if it moves, the h6 pawn falls. Swapnil had a few more tricks under his sleeve but Vaibhav was accurate and the game was all over!

The battle between Aravindh Chithambaram and Vishnu Prasanna ended in a draw | Photo: Atul Kumar Gupta

Stany managed to beat overnight leader Anurag Mhamal showing the power of two bishops! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Deep Sengupta won his game against Harshvardhan GB and joined the leaders | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Deepan Chakkravarthy beat Rajesh VAV | Photo: Atul Kumar Gupta

Top seed Abhijeet Gupta (left) is slowly coming back into the reckoning after his win over Sammed Shete. | Photo: Atul Kumar Gupta

Showing some great chess at the event in veteran GM Pravin Thipsay who beat IM Vignesh NR (2455) | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Results of round 8:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	10	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2518	5½	½ - ½	6	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2584	4
2	12	IM	Stany G.A.	2509	5½	1 - 0	6	GM	Anurag Mhamal	2491	13
3	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2589	5½	1 - 0	5½	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2490	14
4	5	GM	Sengupta Deep	2565	5½	1 - 0	5½		Harshavardhan G B	2163	66
5	1	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2597	5	1 - 0	5½		Sammed Jaykumar Shete	2378	34
6	7	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2550	5	1 - 0	5	IM	Rajesh V A V	2402	26
7	15	IM	Karthikeyan P.	2482	5	½ - ½	5	IM	Viani Antonio Dcunha	2392	30
8	27	GM	Thipsay Praveen M	2400	5	1 - 0	5	IM	Vignesh N R	2455	18
9	33	IM	Rahul Srivatshav P	2379	5	0 - 1	5	IM	Nitin S.	2450	20
10	36	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2366	5	½ - ½	5	IM	Akash G	2443	22
11	39		Ritviz Parab	2338	5	0 - 1	5	GM	Bakre Tejas	2433	24
12	55	FM	Navalgund Niranjan	2240	5	½ - ½	5	GM	Neelotpal Das	2412	25
13	17	GM	Sundararajan Kidambi	2458	4½	1 - 0	5		Mahindrakar Indrajeet	2106	76
14	35		Sankalp Gupta	2378	4½	½ - ½	4½	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2591	2
15	43	IM	Navin Kanna T.U.	2307	4½	½ - ½	4½	GM	Chanda Sandipan	2555	6
16	41	IM	Girinath P.D.S.	2313	4½	0 - 1	4½	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2527	9
17	49	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	2282	4½	0 - 1	4½	IM	Krishna C R G	2464	16
18	19	IM	Swayams Mishra	2452	4½	½ - ½	4½	IM	Saravana Krishnan P.	2346	38
19	21	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2448	4½	½ - ½	4½	FM	Dushyant Sharma	2271	50
20	23	GM	Laxman R.R.	2436	4½	½ - ½	4½	GM	Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi	2296	46

Standings after round 8:

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	4	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2584	TN	6,5	0,0	39,0	42,5
2	12	IM	Stany G.A.	IND	2509	AAI	6,5	0,0	38,5	42,5
3	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2589	PSPB	6,5	0,0	37,5	41,5
4	5	GM	Sengupta Deep	IND	2565	PSPB	6,5	0,0	37,5	41,0
5	13	GM	Anurag Mhamal	IND	2491	GOA	6,0	0,0	38,5	42,5
6	1	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2597	PSPB	6,0	0,0	38,0	41,5
7	10	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	IND	2518	TN	6,0	0,0	37,5	40,0
8	7	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2550	RSPB	6,0	0,0	36,0	39,5
9	27	GM	Thipsay Praveen M	IND	2400	MAH	6,0	0,0	35,5	39,0
10	20	IM	Nitin S.	IND	2450	RSPB	6,0	0,0	32,0	35,5
11	24	GM	Bakre Tejas	IND	2433	AI	6,0	0,0	32,0	35,0
12	66		Harshavardhan G B	IND	2163	TN	5,5	0,0	37,5	40,5
13	15	IM	Karthikeyan P.	IND	2482	RSPB	5,5	0,0	36,5	40,0
14	25	GM	Neelotpal Das	IND	2412	PSPB	5,5	0,0	36,0	39,5
15	14	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	IND	2490	RSPB	5,5	0,0	36,0	39,0
16	36	IM	Rathnakaran K.	IND	2366	RSPB	5,5	0,0	35,5	38,5
17	55	FM	Navalgund Niranjan	IND	2240	KAR	5,5	0,0	35,5	38,0
18	34		Sammed Jaykumar Shete	IND	2378	MAH	5,5	0,0	35,0	38,0
19	22	IM	Akash G	IND	2443	TN	5,5	0,0	33,0	36,5
20	9	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	IND	2527	AP	5,5	0,0	32,5	35,0

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