KIIT R04: CRG Krishna shows his class; beats the top seed

by Sagar Shah - 29/05/2017

Until three rounds top seed Farrukh Amonatov looked unbeatable. He was playing some great chess. However, in the fourth round he found his match in CRG Krishna. The Indian IM played a superb game, without any errors to hand the Tajik GM his first defeat in India after a long time! We have the annotated game along with video interviews with not only Krishna but also Diptayan Ghosh. Five players now lead with 100% score. Illustrated report.

The storm clouds had gathered as it began to drizzle in Bhubaneshwar. But this was nothing compared to the battles that took place over the board!

The main action took place on board one where CRG Krishna was pitted against the top seed Farrukh Amonatov

CRG Krishna is a great exponent of the French Defence. He played the opening in great style and landed in a better position. He kept making accurate moves and was able to beat his higher rated opponent in style. This was the highest rated player that CRG has beaten in his chess career till date.

Huge crowd gathered on board one to not miss the action!

Amonatov has his head in his hands! CRG Krishna finished him off quite easily!

[Event "10th KiiT Festival 2017"]
[Site "Bhubaneshwar"]
[Date "2017.05.28"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Amonatov, Farrukh"]
[Black "Krishna C R G"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C02"]
[WhiteElo "2632"]
[BlackElo "2392"]
[Annotator "Sagar Shah"]
[PlyCount "84"]
[EventDate "2017.??.??"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 {CRG said that he wasn't expecting the advanced
variation against the French.} c5 4. c3 Qb6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. a3 Nge7 7. b4 cxd4 8.
cxd4 Nf5 9. Bb2 Bd7 10. h4 {C02: French: Advance Variation} (10. g4 Nfe7 11.
Nc3 Na5 12. Nd2 Rc8 13. Na4 Qc6 14. b5 Qc7 15. Rc1 Qd8 16. Nc5 Ng6 17. Nxd7
Qxd7 18. h4 Be7 19. h5 {1/2-1/2 (41) Areshchenko,A (2709)-Romanov,E (2640)
Legnica 2013}) 10... Be7 {Black develops normally and will counterattack with
f6 at the right moment.} 11. g4 Nh6 12. Rg1 $1 {LiveBook: 14 Games. White is
slightly better.} Na5 13. Bc1 $146 ({Predecessor:} 13. Nbd2 Rc8 14. Rc1 O-O 15.
Bd3 Nc4 16. Bxc4 dxc4 17. Nxc4 Qb5 18. Ne3 {0-1 (40) Schroeder,J (2311)
-Ikonnikov,V (2537) Frankfurt 2012}) 13... Nc4 14. Bxc4 dxc4 15. Be3 Qd8 16.
Nc3 Bc6 {Black already has a very comfortable position. It was important for
White to pull the emergency brakes and go into this equal line which would
have helped him draw the game.} 17. Ng5 (17. d5 $1 $11 Bxd5 (17... exd5 18. Nd4
$44) 18. Nxd5 Qxd5 19. Qxd5 exd5 20. Nd4 $44) 17... b5 $36 {Black is pushing.}
18. Nge4 a5 (18... Bxh4 $2 19. Nd6+ Kf8 20. d5 $18) 19. Bg5 O-O $17 {CRG is
not afraid of his opponent breaking his kingside structure with Bxh6 and just
castles away.} ({And not} 19... axb4 {[#]} 20. Nd6+ $1 Kf8 21. axb4 $14) 20.
Rb1 (20. Bxh6 axb4 21. axb4 Rxa1 22. Qxa1 gxh6 $19) 20... axb4 $17 21. axb4 Kh8
{Making way for the knight to come to g8.} 22. Qd2 Ng8 23. Bxe7 Nxe7 24. Nd6 (
24. Kf1 $142) 24... Ng6 25. h5 Nh4 26. Rg3 Nf3+ 27. Rxf3 Bxf3 {Black has won
the exchange. The knight on d6 is irritating but something that Black can live
with.} 28. Qf4 f6 $1 29. Qxf3 fxe5 30. Qc6 Qh4 31. Qg2 exd4 {Although White
has two knights for the rook, this huge armada of pawns is simply no match for
any of White's pieces.} 32. Ncxb5 Ra2 {Black is clearly winning.} 33. Ne4 e5 (
33... Rf4 $1 34. Nbd6 d3 $19) 34. Nbd6 c3 35. Nf5 {[#]} Rxf5 $1 36. gxf5 Qxh5
37. Ng3 Qg5 {( -> ...c2)} (37... Qh6 $1 {was more accurate because now f4 is
not possible.}) 38. f4 Rxg2 39. fxg5 Rxg3 40. Kf2 Rxg5 41. Ra1 Rxf5+ 42. Ke2 h5
{A great game by CRG Krishna who hardly made any mistakes.} 0-1

CRG Krishna speaks about his win over Amonatov, how he became a French Defence expert and his aim for the tournament

CRG is famed for his preparation in the French Defence. He has beaten many strong grandmasters with this opening. When asked about the material he uses to prepare, one of the resources he suggest was Shirov's DVD "Fascinated by the French Winawer". This is a 60 minute video where Shirov speaks about the Winawer variation of the French Defence. You can view it for free if you are a member of the ChessBase Premium Account. In case you are not a premium member, this might be the right time to become one! That would give you access to thousands of videos as well as other instructive material on the ChessBase Account.

Macro alias: EmbedProduct

Ziaur Rahman was able to outplay Chakravarthi Reddy on board two

Sayantan Das on his way to victory against Vikramjit Singh

After four rounds we have five players on 100% score. They are IM Sayantan Das, GM Ziaur Rahman, GM R.R. Laxman (who beat Utkal Ranjan Sahoo in round 4), IM C.R.G Krishna and IM S. Nitin (who beat Ravi Teja).

Facebook Live video done during the fourth round. The clarity might not be the best but it gives you a good idea of what it is like to play at the KIIT Open.

Rank after Round 4

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	20	IM	Das Sayantan		IND	2396	WB	4,0	0,0	8,5	10,5
2	4	GM	Rahman Ziaur		BAN	2526	BAN	4,0	0,0	8,0	10,0
	16	GM	Laxman R.R.		IND	2417	TN	4,0	0,0	8,0	10,0
	23	IM	Krishna C R G		IND	2392	AP	4,0	0,0	8,0	10,0
5	14	IM	Nitin S.		IND	2426	TN	4,0	0,0	6,5	7,5
6	2	GM	Ghosh Diptayan		IND	2569	WB	3,5	0,0	9,0	11,5
7	21		Sidhant Mohapatra		IND	2393	ODI	3,5	0,0	8,0	10,0
8	13	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad		TJK	2433	TJK	3,5	0,0	8,0	10,0
9	52	AGM	Fenil Shah		IND	2252	GUJ	3,5	0,0	8,0	9,5
10	149		Shubham		IND	1938	DEL	3,5	0,0	8,0	8,0
11	35	FM	Karthik Venkataraman		IND	2317	TN	3,5	0,0	7,5	9,5
12	9	IM	Shyaamnikhil P		IND	2457	TN	3,5	0,0	7,5	9,0
13	22	IM	Iniyan P		IND	2392	TN	3,5	0,0	7,5	8,5
14	12	GM	Reefat Bin-Sattar		BAN	2437	BAN	3,5	0,0	7,0	9,0
15	34		Arjun Kalyan		IND	2322	TN	3,5	0,0	7,0	9,0
16	38		Raahul V S		IND	2311	TN	3,5	0,0	6,5	8,5
17	10	GM	Babujian Levon		ARM	2438	ARM	3,5	0,0	6,5	8,0
18	6	GM	Deviatkin Andrei		RUS	2481	RUS	3,5	0,0	6,0	7,5
	29		Navalgund Niranjan		IND	2351	TN	3,5	0,0	6,0	7,5

Check out the complete list of rankings after round four

Second seed of the event Diptayan Ghosh scored a win over Rajesh Nayak and moved to 3.5/4

The thing which has always impressed me about Diptayan is the ease with which he keeps climbing up the Elo ladder. He now has a rating of 2569. I caught up with him after the game and asked him a few questions which you can find in the video below. Diptayan talks about the pawn endgame swindle in round two, and about the young and upcoming talent D. Gukesh (he will be a GM very soon!), how he manages to keep increasing his rating and what are his future plans and tournaments.

A short interview with Diptayan Ghosh

The rising stars of Orissa: Sidhant Mohapatra, who is on 3.5/4 and beat Mohammad Fahad, Rajesh Nayak (centre), who on his way to 3.0/4 beat IM Rajesh VAV and Mitrabha Guha, and Utkal Sahoo (right), who lost to Laxman today but had beaten Debashis Das yesterday.

A game filled with lots of ups and downs. Gukesh had a poor position out of the opening and then maanged to somehow equalize. Deviatkin made a few errors, but it was the young boy who made the last one and hence lost the game.

IM K.S. Raghunandan (right) blundered an entire piece in a position where he was a pawn up and lost to Fenil Shah. Fenil is playing competitive chess after quite some time and a score of 3.5/4 is very impressive.

Young Aditya Mittal lost to Muhammad Khusenkhojaev

Look at the clock! It was Niranjan Navalgund who was under pressure, but it was Sekhar Sahu who blundered and gave the full point to Niranjan. We are hoping that Niranjan makes another GM norm and treats us to something like this!

Padmini Rout's woes at this event continue. Today she lost to Avdhoot Lendhe (2080).

A special mention must be made about the talent from Assam Shahil Dey. He scored 2.5 points in the first three rounds against players rated 400 points above him! He is already gaining 86 Elo points from the event in spite of losing the fourth round.

Girl Power: Amruta Mokal, Arpita Mukherjee and Krithigaa

Amruta Mokal, my wife, was up against Sampath Cheela Naga in the fourth round. She played the opening well and got a clear advantage with the white pieces. But it was now time to finish off the opponent. Can you find the winning idea?

Amruta Mokal - Sampath Cheela Naga

White to play

Normal moves like Qc3 or Be3 are definitely possible, but White has a killer blow. And it shouldn't come as a surprise because he is so well developed. So the key idea is 1.e5!! Now fxe5 loses pretty simply to Bg5! Hence Black must choose 1...dxe5. White now has...

... the powerful move 2.Be3! This backward move is easy to miss. But once you see it you realize how powerful it is. The idea is to just exchange the dark squared bishop and utilize the c5 square for the knight after which is the game is almost over! In words of Jacob Aagaard what White did was Revolution (e5!) and followed it up with evolution (Be3!). I think the idea was pretty cool and unusual.

Round 5 on 2017/05/29 at 09:30 hrs

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	4	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2526	4		4	GM	Laxman R.R.	2417	16
2	23	IM	Krishna C R G	2392	4		4	IM	Nitin S.	2426	14
3	6	GM	Deviatkin Andrei	2481	3½		4	IM	Das Sayantan	2396	20
4	29		Navalgund Niranjan	2351	3½		3½	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2569	2
5	35	FM	Karthik Venkataraman	2317	3½		3½	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2457	9
6	10	GM	Babujian Levon	2438	3½		3½	IM	Iniyan P	2392	22
7	149		Shubham	1938	3½		3½	GM	Reefat Bin-Sattar	2437	12
8	13	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2433	3½		3½		Arjun Kalyan	2322	34
9	21		Sidhant Mohapatra	2393	3½		3½		Raahul V S	2311	38
10	1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2632	3		3½	AGM	Fenil Shah	2252	52

For complete pairings

Watch the games live

You can also download games from the link given above.

Previous reports on KIIT International 2017:

10th KIIT International about to begin

01: Chandreyee Hajra stuns Padmini Rout

02+03: Ten players on perfect score