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The 13th edition of the Parasvnath Delhi Open is launching this weekend. It has massive participation as always. Twenty-three GMs have confirmed their presence. It will be split into three sections, with a generous Rs 30-lakh prize fund.
The Delhi tournament also follows (as usual) on the heels of the Chennai Open, which is similarly split into three groups. Both tournaments benefit from the scheduling. Chennai saw 937 players gunning for the Rs 14-lakh prize fund.
It has just ended in a massive tie. Eight players, including Ramnath Bhuvanesh, Swapnil Dhopade and Siddharth Ravichandran, scored 7.5 points each in the 10-round Swiss. GMs Ivan Popov, Marat Dzhumaev and Mozharov Mikhail had the three best tie breaks.
The Parsvnath gets less coverage than it deserves because it clashes with the Tata Steel Super-GM at Wijk An Zee. WAZ has two round-robins and a big open. The A field is Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Teimour Radjabov, Ding Liren, Baadur Jobava, Vassily Ivanchuk, Hou Yifan, Loek van Wely and Ivan Saric. The lowest rated is Saric (winner of the 2014 B Group) at 2666. The average rating is 2746.
While world champion Carlsen is naturally the favourite, number 2 Caruana has his backers. The reigning Tata Steel champion, Aronian is also very capable of defending his title if he's in form. The Georgian tactician, Jobava, is very likely to produce some of the most interesting games, win or lose.
The B group has an average of 2561 with David Navarra, Wei Yi, Sam Shankland and Sam Sevian among the more interesting participants. Navarra (2729) is the top seed and a very strong player. But the unassuming Czech GM is likely to attract less media attention than the youngsters, Wei (born June 1999) and Sevian.
Wei has an Elo of 2675 and he's the youngest member of the Top 100. The 14-year-old Sevian is the youngest-ever American to make GM and currently the youngest GM in the world. The other American GM, Shankland, took gold as first reserve at the Tromso Olympiad. He scored 9/ 10, logging a Elo 2829 performance.
THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (White: Habu,Yoshiharu Vs Black: Merkesvik, Stockholm 2014-15) is not hard to solve. But it features a lovely finish and it is played by a legend.
White played 21.Bxh5 Qa5 Since 21...gxh5 22.Qg2 is mate. 22.Rg5! e5 23.b3 Ra3 24.Bb6 Qa8 25.f5 Kh8 26.f6 Bh6 27.Bxg6 fxg6.
White is easily winning and for example, 28. Qg2 Bxg5 29. hxg5 will win. But how does he force mate? 28.Rh5!! gxh5 29.Qxh6+ Kg8 30.Qg7# (1-0). For those were wondering, Habu Yoshiharu is one of the all-time greats of Shogi, the Japanese variant of chess.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
