Gibraltar 05: Peace and War
The biggest chess open in the world currently, the Gibraltar Masters, has reached the halfway mark. After four rounds of play, GM Ju Wenjun and ACP President, GM Emil Sutovsky were leading the tournament with a perfect score of 4.0/4. Their game ended in a tame draw. However, this was compensated by scintillating wins by Nakamura, Caruana and Topalov. For Indians Lalith Babu drew his game against Ivanchuk and Abhijeet Gupta has now scored four consecutive wins. We bring you an illustrated round five report.
Photos by John Saunders and Sophie Triay
As round five of the ten-round event began, Ju Wenjun was heading closer to reaching the 2600 rating mark and becoming the sixth woman in the history of the game to have reached that feat. With only three points to gain, she sat down to play against Sutovsky. Behind these two, a strong league of grandmasters including the likes of Mickey Adams, Hikaru Nakamura and MVL were roughing it out to catch them in the lead. There was blood anticipated over the chessboard.
To the disappointment of the crowd, Ju Wenjun agreed to a draw against Emil Sutovsky in just 15 moves of a Grunfeld Defence. Knowing that the spectators would be disappointed with the result, Emil Sutovsky went into the commentary room and explained to the commentators Simon Williams and Jovanka Houska that he felt bad about having taken a draw so early. He further explained that he might have ended in a worse position if he hadn’t taken the repetition at that point. Not to mention the fact that he was taken by surprise by Wenjun’s opening choice.
Although the top board game was a quick and disappointing draw, it sent a wave of motivation to the players trying to catch Wenjun and Sutovsky in the lead and there were quite a few decisive results on the top boards.
Performance of the Indian posse.
Round five brought mixed results for team India. Although GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly lost his game to the ex-Women’s World Champ, Antoaneta Stefanova, GM Abhijeet Gupta sealed his fourth win in a row. He is now back at the top after his first round upset against the German FM Frank Buchenau.
…the ultra-artistic Vadim Zvjaginsev[Site "Caleta ENG"]
[Date "2017.01.28"]
[Round "5.6"]
[White "Zvjaginsev, Vadim"]
[Black "Sethuraman, S.P."]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C24"]
[WhiteElo "2679"]
[BlackElo "2637"]
[Annotator "Sagar,Shah"]
[PlyCount "61"]
[EventDate "2017.01.24"]
bxc3 Bg4 9. h3 Bh5 10. O-O O-O 11. g4 (11. Re1 f6 12. Bb3 Kh8 {The position
should be around even.}) 11... Bg6 12. Re1 Re8 13. a4 h6 14. a5 e4 15. dxe4
Bxe4 16. a6 $1 {I like this move. It softens up the c6 knight and makes the
next idea possible.} bxa6 17. Bg5 $5 {A very original move that launches a
discovered attack on the knight on d5. The threat now is to take on e4.} (17.
Bxh6 {doesn't work because of} Nb6 $1 $15 (17... gxh6 $2 18. Rxe4 $16)) 17...
Nf6 $1 {Sethuraman sidesteps the danger.} (17... hxg5 $2 18. Rxe4 $1 Rxe4 19.
Bxd5 $16 {White will recover the material with interest.}) 18. Qxd8 Raxd8 19.
Bxf6 gxf6 20. Nd4 Nxd4 21. cxd4 Rxd4 22. Bxa6 {The position is just equal.} Re5
23. c3 Rd8 24. f4 Re6 25. Bf1 Ra8 26. Bc4 Ree8 27. Ra6 Kg7 28. Rea1 f5 29. Rxa7
fxg4 30. hxg4 Rxa7 31. Rxa7 1/2-1/2
Game of the day
With the hope of reaching a solid position, Topalov chose to play the Catalan. But him being him, and him being awesome, the position turned wild in no time. In just 25 moves, Deac was on his knees!
[Site "Caleta ENG"]
[Date "2017.01.28"]
[Round "5.12"]
[White "Topalov, Veselin"]
[Black "Deac, Bogdan-Daniel"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "E04"]
[WhiteElo "2739"]
[BlackElo "2572"]
[Annotator "Sagar,Shah"]
[PlyCount "49"]
[EventDate "2017.01.24"]
e3 Qd7 9. O-O Rd8 10. Qe2 e5 11. Nc3 Be7 12. dxe5 Nxe5 13. Bxb7 Bb4 (13... O-O
{And Black has a fine position out of the opening.}) 14. Rd1 Nd3 15. e4 Bxc3
16. bxc3 Qb5 $1 {Deac is playing quite accurately.} 17. e5 Nd5 $6 (17... O-O $1
18. exf6 Qxb7 19. Qg4 g6 $17 {And Black is better. This should haveen
preferred by Deac.}) 18. Rb1 $1 Nxc3 $2 {The most natural move actually turns
out to be a blunder.} (18... Qc5 $1 $11) (18... Qxb1 19. Bc6+ Rd7 20. Bxd7+
Kxd7 21. Qg4+ $18) 19. Qf3 Qxe5 (19... Nxb1 20. Bc6+ $18) (19... Qxb1 20. Bc6+
Ke7 (20... Rd7 21. Bxd7+ Kxd7 22. Qg4+ $1 (22. Qxf7+ $2 Kc8 $19) 22... Ke7 (
22... Kc6 23. Qxc4+ $18) 23. Bg5+ f6 24. exf6+ gxf6 25. Rxb1 $18) 21. Bg5+ $18)
20. Qc6+ Kf8 21. Bb2 $1 Ne2+ 22. Kg2 c3 23. Ba3+ Kg8 24. Qe4 c2 25. Rxd3 {
A brilliant game by Veselin Topalov.} 1-0
Rank after Round 5
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | w-we | |
| 1 | 28 | GM | Sutovsky Emil | ISR | 2628 | 4,5 | 16,5 | 9,5 | 14,25 | 1,22 |
| 38 | GM | Ju Wenjun | CHN | 2583 | 4,5 | 16,5 | 9,5 | 14,25 | 1,40 | |
| 3 | 5 | GM | Adams Michael | ENG | 2751 | 4,5 | 16,0 | 10,0 | 14,25 | 0,73 |
| 4 | 34 | GM | Lagarde Maxime | FRA | 2594 | 4,5 | 16,0 | 10,0 | 14,00 | 1,44 |
| 5 | 24 | GM | Anton Guijarro David | ESP | 2650 | 4,5 | 14,5 | 9,0 | 13,00 | 1,08 |
| 6 | 3 | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | USA | 2785 | 4,5 | 14,0 | 8,5 | 12,50 | 0,54 |
| 7 | 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | FRA | 2796 | 4,0 | 17,5 | 11,0 | 13,75 | -0,03 |
| 8 | 15 | GM | Zvjaginsev Vadim | RUS | 2679 | 4,0 | 17,5 | 10,5 | 13,25 | 0,43 |
| 9 | 13 | GM | Cheparinov Ivan | BUL | 2689 | 4,0 | 16,5 | 10,0 | 13,00 | 0,25 |
| 10 | 8 | GM | Yu Yangyi | CHN | 2738 | 4,0 | 16,0 | 9,0 | 12,50 | 0,16 |
Round 6 on 2017/01/29 at 15.00
| Bo. | No. | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | Result | Pts. | Name | FED | Rtg | No. | ||
| 1 | 3 | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | USA | 2785 | 4½ | 4½ | GM | Lagarde Maxime | FRA | 2594 | 34 | |
| 2 | 5 | GM | Adams Michael | ENG | 2751 | 4½ | 4½ | GM | Ju Wenjun | CHN | 2583 | 38 | |
| 3 | 28 | GM | Sutovsky Emil | ISR | 2628 | 4½ | 4½ | GM | Anton Guijarro David | ESP | 2650 | 24 | |
| 4 | 16 | GM | Short Nigel D | ENG | 2675 | 4 | 4 | GM | Caruana Fabiano | USA | 2827 | 1 | |
| 5 | 2 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | FRA | 2796 | 4 | 4 | GM | Gupta Abhijeet | IND | 2645 | 25 |
Player overview for IND
| SNo | Name | Rtg | FED | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Pts. | Rk. | Group | |
| 19 | GM | Ganguly Surya Shekhar | 2657 | IND | ½ | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 3,0 | 69 | Masters |
| 25 | GM | Gupta Abhijeet | 2645 | IND | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4,0 | 22 | Masters |
| 26 | GM | Sethuraman S.P. | 2637 | IND | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 4,0 | 12 | Masters |
| 37 | GM | Lalith Babu M R | 2587 | IND | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 3,5 | 50 | Masters |
| 40 | GM | Gopal G.N. | 2579 | IND | 1 | 1 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 3,0 | 59 | Masters |
| 61 | IM | Aryan Chopra | 2503 | IND | 1 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 3,0 | 87 | Masters |
| 72 | GM | Debashis Das | 2472 | IND | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 3,5 | 43 | Masters |
| 91 | GM | Sundararajan Kidambi | 2420 | IND | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3,0 | 100 | Masters |
| 92 | IM | Karavade Eesha | 2418 | IND | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 2,0 | 168 | Masters |
| 115 | WGM | Soumya Swaminathan | 2375 | IND | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3,0 | 101 | Masters |
| 124 | IM | Siva Mahadevan | 2356 | IND | 0 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3,0 | 99 | Masters |
| 129 | Kulkarni Rakesh | 2344 | IND | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3,0 | 108 | Masters | |
| 132 | FM | Rakesh Kumar Jena | 2335 | IND | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,0 | 169 | Masters |
| 141 | IM | Saravanan V. | 2306 | IND | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,0 | 171 | Masters |
| 154 | WIM | Pratyusha Bodda | 2247 | IND | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2,0 | 167 | Masters |
Check out more details related to Indian players
About the author
Aditya Pai is an ardent chess fan, avid reader, and a film lover. He has been an advertising copywriter and is currently pursuing a Master's in English Literature at the University of Mumbai. He loves all things German and is learning the language. He has also written scripts for experimental films.