CHESS #1374

Wang Hao was the second Chinese GM to qualify for the Candidates, tying for the title at the FIDE Grand Open Chess. Wang scored 8/11 equalling Fabiano Caruana’s score. Since Caruana is guaranteed a spot, Wang gets in, along with his colleague Ding Liren, who won the World Cup. Wang played all the top players and suffered just one loss, to Levon Aronian. 

Ding will be playing his second Candidate. The leaders were followed by Levon Aronian, Kirill Alekseenko, David Antón Guijarro, Magnus Carlsen, Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Nikita Vitiugov (all 7.5).

Sadly, none of the Indian participants challenged for that one spot though the 14-year-old Raunak Sadhwani had the satisfaction of becoming India’s 65th Grandmaster. Harika Dronavalli had the best result among women participants. The best result came from Vidit Gujrathi (7) with Viswanathan Anand, Krishnan Sasikiran, Pentala Harikrishna, S P Sethuraman all scoring 6.5. Carlsen, by the way, did set a record; he crossed 101 successive classical games without loss. 

The World Juniors and the World Junior Girls are nearing their conclusion in Delhi. With one round to play, Evgeny Shtembuliak of the Ukraine leads the Juniors with 8/10. Aram Hakobyan, Miguel Santos Ruiz and Shant Sargsyan (all 7.5) share second spot. A catastrophic loss to Ruiz knocked Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (6.5) out of contention for medals.  

In the girls, Russian talent Polina Shuvalova (9/10) seems set to bag this title to add to the U-18 title which she took in Mumbai two weeks ago. Shuvalova is developing a reputation as one of the most imaginative tacticians, always on the lookout to imbalance with sacrifices, including very big sacs. Mobina Alinasab (8) of Iran is in clear second spot. 

One can’t extrapolate from this one event, given that several of India’s top young talents opted to play the FIDE Grand Open Swiss instead of the World Juniors. But it does appear that other nations planned campaigns better. There were high expectations riding on Karthikeyan Murali and Chithambaram Aravindh, who are both higher rated than Shtembuliak. In the girls’ section too, there were illnesses and withdrawals from some Indian hopefuls. 

The Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (White: Miguel Ruiz Vs Black: Praggnanandhaa , World Juniors 2019) is an interesting illustration of how fast a good position can deteriorate. This is equal but unbalanced. Black played 19. — c5 ? 20. g4! (Now it’s lost)  Bb7 21. Rhg1 Be4 22. gxf5 Bxc2 23. Qxc2 exf5 24. Qxf5 Ne8 This is hopeless but there’s no way to defend the kingside anyhow. The game concluded 25. Rxg7+! Nxg7 26. Qe5! Rf7 27. Rg1 Kf8 28. Rxg7 Qd8 29. Rg8+ (1-0). Black had to try something like 19.— Rf7 20. Rhg1 Ne4 21. g4 Qf2! Forcing either a queen exchange or allowing the black queen to defend. The Qb6-e3/f2 diagonal must be kept open. 
 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player