At the strong Aeroflot Open, Moscow Bharath Subramaniyam, a 12-year-old International Master from Chennai, beat three strong GMs before he lost to Rauf Mamedov in the fifth round. After eight rounds, Mamedov shares the lead with Aydin Suleymanli (both 6). Baskaran Adhiban and Aravindh Chithambaram are in a pack of eight players sharing second (all 5.5 each). Bharath (4.5) has probably made a GM norm. Another prodigy, D Gukesh won the Hillerhod in Denmark in January and followed up by winning the Cannes Open last week. Gukesh scored 7.5/9 for a rating performance of 2667.
The 10-player Prague Masters ended disastrously for Vidit Gujrathi. Gujrathi was sole leader until he lost in the second-last round to David Navara from a winning position. Jan-Krzystzof Duda beat him again in the last round. There was a five-way tie between Alireza Firouzja, Vidit, David Anton Guijarro, Sam Shankland and Duda (all 5). Firouzja won the tie-breaker, beating Vidit in blitz.Despite the poor finish, Vidit gains Elo.
The Candidates has an interesting prize structure. The total prize fund is Euro 500,000 ($542,158 approx), net of local taxes. All prize money will be divided equally between players who have the same scores. There can be no draws before move 40 except via repetition. The winner will of course, be the next Challenger and there will be a tiebreak, if required.
There’s controversy brewing around Regium Chess, a new “chess-tech” company. Regium claims to manufacture e-boards and recently offered to sponsor one of Chess.com’s popular speed events where Hikaru Nakamura beat Wesley So in the finals.
Imagine a physical board, which can be hooked up to play online. A player makes physical moves and the embedded software transmits the moves, pick up the replies, etc. Several companies — Square off is one — are working on providing such functionalities.
Regium Chess claims to have developed such a board. Doubts have been raised however, by players at Chess.com and Lichess which say those claims are unverified. Phil Wang at thispersondoesnotexist.com claims models in the promo videos may be generated by Nvidia’s Deepfake program!
The Diagram, White to Play, (White: Gujrathi Vs Black: Navara , Prague Master 2020), is the set up for a combination. White played 15. Bxf7+! Kxf7 16. e6+! Kxe6 17. Qe2+ Kf7 [Apparently 17. Qa4 is stronger] 18. O-O-O Bf6 19. Ne4 Qe7 [Now 20. Qc2 with a threat of Rhe1 is crushing but Vidit’s line is good enough]
Play continued 20. Nd6+ Kf8 21. Qxe7+ Bxe7 22. Nxb7 Nf6 23. Ne5 Nd5 24. Kb1 Rc8 25. Rhe1 Bxa3!? [Black is trying to confuse the issue] 26. Nxc6! Bb4 27. Nxb4 Nxb4 28. Rd7 h5 29. Nd6 Ra8 30. Ree7 . Amazingly white lost this position (0-1, 64 moves).
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
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