14th Dubai Open Chess Championship

Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup

This event is taking place from April 15th-23rd at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club, which is the most modern and biggest dedicated chess club in the world. Its players constitute the ‘backbone” of the UAE national team, and as a matter of fact those players have achieved outstanding successes on all levels.

Largest in the world? The famous Dubai Chess and Culture Club

The Copthorne Hotel where the players reside

GMs waiting for transport to the tournament venue

The bus shuttle takes them to the Dubai Chess and Culture Club

The entrance to the famous chess club, billed as the biggest in the world

Al Mamzer Beach Park, close to the playing venue [View Larger Map]

Al Mamzar Park covers an area of 106 hectares and offers barbecue sites, private chalets, swimming pool, food kiosks, sheltered beach and safe lagoon, a scenic train and many children's play areas.

The "golden sand beach" adjacent to the park

Photos above were provided by GM Sergey Volkov – below by the offical web site

The start of round on, with top seed Georgian GM Baadur Jobava, 2706, playing
untitled Kazakh Kazbek Primbetov, 2220. Jobava won in 49 moves.

GM Vladimir Akopian of Armenia, rated 2684

GM Amin Bassem of Egypt, rated 2608

Indian IM Tania Sachdev, rated 2414, with 2.5/3 points in seventh place

The PGN file supplied by the organisers (see link at the bottom of this report) includes a second round game Ivan Sokolov vs Tania Sachdev which is recorded as a black-piece victory for the latter – but does not include moves or a commentary. We have contacted Tania, who is currently preparing for round four, to find out the circumstances of this game.

Addendum: Rakesh Pai of Bangalore, India, showed us an Indian newspaper article which explains what happened: Loek Van Wely of Holland and his compatriot Ivan Sokolov failed to turn up in time for the game. Akshayraj Kore and Tania Sachdev were awarded walkovers by the arbiter. Kore pleaded that he wanted to play but the arbiter did not relent. Tania left for her hotel, but Kore hung in there with his request that was eventually granted after a meeting. When Tania was informed it was already too late for the Delhi girl as the game might well have continued way past midnight.

GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia, rated 2626

We retrieved the above picture from the official web site, where it is unhelpully captioned "DSC_0766.jpg". Not recalling immediately who exactly this familiar face was we use the advanced Google picture search to identify it. This amazing technology allows you to point to a picture and ask for similar images. And back it came, with this stunning photo which is entitled "Sweet cake with unique decoration". If Google stores the search operation you will be able to see the other results here. Guys, you still have to work on this... Apologies to Mikheil – but it is funny.

Russian GM Volkov Sergey, 2623, who sent us photographic impressions from Dubai

A hoodie? Seriously? India GM Parimarjan Negi, rated 2639

Iranian WIM Shayesteh Ghader Pour, rated 2248, in her game against her husband ...

... GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, who comments on their game in the video report below

Top seed and leader Baadur Jobava from Georgia

Top standings after three rounds

Video reports by Vijay Kumar

The opening of the 14th Dubai Open Chess Championship with IM Vishal Sareen

Interviews with Ghaem Maghami, who comments on his second round game against his wife
WIM Ghader Pour Shayesteh, Jobava Baadur and G.N. Gopal.

Links Official tournament site Selection of games in PGN A selection of games are being broadcast shown as a live stream on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Copyright ChessBase