CHESS#1314

It’s been an incredible week for Indian chess. First, R Vaishali, the 17-year-old elder sister of Praggnanandhaa, completed her Woman Grandmaster title with a third and final WGM norm at the Riga Technical University Open on August 12. On August 14, 14-year-old Nihal Sarin (he’s a month past his 14th birthday actually) completed his Grandmaster title at the Abu Dhabi Masters. India’s 53rd GM did it with a round to spare.

Then, on Independence Day, Arjun Erigaisi, who is a month short of his 15th birthday, became India’s 54th Grandmaster with a clutch win in the last round at Abu Dhabi. It’s worth noting that Arjun scored his first GM norm only in May, so his career graph has since gone vertical. He is Telengana’s first GM.

To put the icing on the cake, on August 16, Karthik Venkataraman, who seems to be positively elderly at the age of 19,  became India’s 55th GM at the Spilimbergo Open, Italy. I can’t recall another week when something like this happened. Obviously the future of Indian chess is bright, and it’s no fluke that India has 11 players in the Top 100 juniors list — tied for the top spot with Russia.

There are high hopes of a medal at the Batumi Olympiad where the Open Team will field Viswanathan Anand, Pentala Harikrishna, Vidit Gujrathi, Krishnan Sasikiran and Baskaran Adhiban with R B Ramesh as coach. The team is seeded fifth in Elo average and India will be hoping to beat its prior record of tying for third in the last two Olympiads.

The women’s team, which came fifth in the last Olympiad, is seeded fourth, with Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, Eesha Karavade and Padmini Rout with GM Jacob Aagaard as the coach. Both squads are capable of beating any other team on any given day and both teams could get a medal if a little luck goes their way.

Anand was in poor form, however, at the St Louis Rapid & Blitz, which is part of the Grand Chess Tour. Hikaru Nakamura won the 10-player event (rapid points were double weighted) with 22.5 points, with Maxime Vachier Lagrave (21.5) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (21) close on his heels. Anand (13.5) trailed in 

last place.

The diagram, White to Play (White: Junta Ikeda vs. Black: Nihal Sarin, Abu Dhabi Masters 2018) is extremely unbalanced. White’s taken space at the cost of denuding his king. It’s surprising how quickly it ends. The normal 15. Nxe5 Bb7 16. Ng3 Qf6 is unpleasant.

White tried 15.f5 Nd4 16.f6 Re8 17.0–0–0 Bf5 18.Re1. Now it’s simple chess with 18.--Bxe4 19.Rxe4 Nbc6 20.fxg7 Qxd6 21.Be2 Qg6 22.Re3 Nb4! (0–1). It’s mate or massive material loss.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player.