The Chess Academy of Armenia, under the auspices of Armenian Chess Federation, organized the annual “Lake Sevan 2015” International Chess Tournament from 11 to 21 July, 2015 in Martuni, Armenia. It was a FIDE category 15 ten player round-robin event with an average Elo of 2617. The games started every day at 3 p.m. local time. Tournament director was GM Smbat Lputian, Chief Arbiter IA Norayr Kalantaryan, time control Fisher Time.
Editorial note: The way in which a 2650 player thinks and feels is quite difficult to understand. There are only 100 such players in the world, and majority of them like to keep things to themselves. Only a few, Vidit Gujrathi being one of them, are ready to share their experiences with the world-wide audience in order to enrich their understanding of the game. After the tournament when we asked Vidit to give his personal account of the Lake Sevan 2015 tournament, he readily agreed. In spite of his hectic training schedule for the preparation of the Asian Continental, he found the time to share his thoughts and annotate his games in great detail. We wish him all the luck on behalf of all the readers of ChessBase.
On 10th of July, I left from the Mumbai airport to participate in the Lake Sevan International 2015 – with mixed feelings. I wasn’t very happy with my level of preparation, but at the same time I was very excited to play some good games. Even though I was the defending champion I did not feel any pressure as such. I won the Lake Sevan tournament in 2014 and played well in World Team Championships 2015. I like to play in Armenia. Sometimes you have good memories of a certain place and it helps you to play well. Positive vibes you can say!
The participants: Jan-Krzysztof Duda, David Anton Guijarro, Vladislav Artemiev, Robert Hovhannisyan, Vidit Gujrathi, Salem Saleh, Samuel Sevian, Tigran Petrosian, Hovhannes Gabuzyan and Samvel Ter-Sahakyan.
The 2014 edition was definitely stronger than this year. In 2014 I was the seventh seed and there were many experienced players like Areshchenko, Melkumyan, Kuzubov and others. This year it was completely different. I was the seeded second. In 2014 I was the youngest and this year five players were younger to me, with Sevian, born in 2000, making me look positively old! The Elo of the participants did not reflect their true playing strength, as all the players are still in their developing phase and will gain many rating points in the time to come. No wonder the event was dubbed as a “Tournament of future stars”.
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GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Date of Birth: 24 October, 1994, Current Rating 2643
From the Lake Sevan tournament web site
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How does one prepare for an event like this? There are usually two approaches – one is specific opening preparation based on your opponent’s repertoire. If one follows this then he has to prepare with both the colours as the lots are drawn just a day prior to the tournament. The other approach is to go for general preparation trying to improve on your weaknesses without worrying about your opponent’s. I tried to balance between the two. I looked at my opponent’s games before the tournament but didn’t go into any specific preparation based on their openings. I was trying to fix the problems in my own repertoire. It was more general. Besides I hadn’t played a serious tournament for quite some time, so I was mainly concerned with getting into good shape before the tournament.
Tigran Petrosian (above) is the trickiest player I know. I have played four blitz games against him and every time I was winning, but in the time pressure he would always trick me with some sneaky moves and win. He doesn’t have a very solid opening repertoire – he plays opening lines where he might be slightly worse but where the position is strategically complex and rich.
In this tournament he was clearly out of shape, yet he beat me and Artemiev, two of the highest rated players in the event. In his game against me I had a clearly better position but as you already must have guessed by now…. he tricked me! I did not play concretely when I held the advantage – I did not force a decision and kept shuffling my pieces in time pressure. What happened next is for you to see.
My game against Hovhannisyan gave me unprecedented fame… for the wrong reasons!
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi - Robert Hovhannisyan
I saw that 21.Na5! was winning. I calculated the line (see analysis below), but it was a bit complicated. I wanted to keep things simple. I thought Black doesn’t have any good moves in the position (which is partly true because even Rc2 or Qc2 is a good move). Since I had taken Bxg4, I had the idea of Rh3-g3. I just chose the worst moment to play it. Do you see instantly why?
What happens on the board stays on the board! Hovhannes Gabuzyan, Vidit and
Robert Hovhannisyan have a light moment together at the closing ceremony.
And how do you come back after such a loss? For me it was sharing the pain with a friend who had been having a torrid event! Salem Saleh had also lost his game that day. So we both were depressed and decided to meet and show our best games to each other. And this helped me to be in a better mood for the next game. I was inspired by looking at Salem’s crazy attacking chess. So in my game with Ter-Sahakyan I decided to roll the dice and complicate the game right from the opening!
The idea of 0-0-0 was very risky and after the game Petrosian told me that this queen sacrifice with Qxb7 is almost winning for White. Of course both Samvel and I were out of our preparation, probably as early as move nine. I leave you readers with the opportunity to check whether Petrosian’s words are true – or was he tricking me once again!?
Vidit’s coming back with a win after a tragic mate in one was quite an inspiring story
and many top players echoed that emotion, like Sam Shankland on facebook
– Part two of this article to follow soon –
The tournament standings and interview with the winner can be in our previous report.
LinksYou can use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com. |
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