Lake Sevan 2015: A player’s perspective (2)

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.

Martuni is a town located on the southern shore of Lake Sevan in Armenia

Lake Sevan 2015: A player’s perspective (2)

By Vidit Gujrathi

In my previous report I described what it was like for me, the defending champion, to blunder into a shocking mate in one in a better position –and how I managed to come back to win the next round! Before I delve into the way the tournament ended for me, let us look at the efforts of some of the other players – starting with Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, against whom I had scored an important point in round seven.

Samvel Ter-Sahakyan, the only man to beat final tournament winner Jan Krzysztof Duda

Samvel has a limited repertoire. He was playing some good chess, but in most of the games he had bad positions out of the opening. He turned out be the only person who could beat the tournament winner. And what crazy game it was! The white king ran from g1 to b1 in search of safety, and when he found it, the endgame was already lost!

Salem Saleh (above left next to Tigran Petrosian at the opening ceremony) has been my very good friend for quite some time now. We both had a common grief in this tournament – losing good positions. He has a very enterprising style of play, he loves to attack and he creates complications almost out of nowhere. With such a style, sometimes things go his way and sometimes everything goes wrong. But as he told me after this event, he had never had such a bad tournament with six losses. He wasn’t playing badly at all, but he made many mistakes in time pressure, and that affected his results.

Hovhannes Gabuzyan had a solid tournament with two wins, two losses and five draws

Hovhannes has a very unorthodox style which is in complete contrast to my own. He takes his chances but at the same time gives opportunities to his opponent. Draw becomes an almost impossible result. That’s one of the main reasons why I enjoy playing against him. In our battle over here he played this idea with Qh4 followed by g4, which was very new, but maybe just a little bit too original for it to be good! He outplayed Salem quite easily, but I guess the most representative game of his style was the one against Tigran Petrosian.

Samuel Sevian (above) is so very young! Just fourteen and half years and already 2578! He is super talented, and has the right backing and guidance, so I think he has every chance to become one of the best players in the world. I thought that his style was very aggressive and concrete, but he was playing openings like the Marshall (where his opponents played the Anti-Marshall) and Arkhangelsk. I was surprised by his opening choices. Sicilian would be right kind of opening for a player like him.

Samuel was very resourceful in the tournament and held a few inferior positions, but he just couldn’t put pressure on his opponents. He didn’t create many chances, but when pushed against the wall he came up with the goods. Check out this cute little mating idea against Hovhannisyan.

Samuel Sevian – Robert Hovhannisyan

What should White play? See if you can find the winning plan.

And last but not the least I have to show you my game against Samuel. A crazily complicated encounter which was a slugfest of tactical ideas, patterns, promotions and under-promotions and what not! Though the result was not exactly in my favour, this was still my favourite game from the tournament.

When playing such a grueling event it is good to indulge in some physical activity. Apart from staying fit you develop a good camaraderie with the other players in the tournament. Compared to last year I had improved quite a bit at table tennis, but Salem was simply too strong.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. It was a good idea to be on Salem’s team!

Salem beat all his opponents with absolute ease at table tennis. We used to play “winner to stay” and he just didn’t leave his spot for hours on end. But I guess this is where he wasted all his luck and had nothing left for his games in the tournament!

Robert Hovhannisyan has it all covered – in pool against Samuel Sevian!

The Armenian hospitality was just fantastic. They treat players with great respect, the people are very friendly and I love it over here. If you forget Rh3?? I have very positive memories to take back from this event. The official dinner after the closing ceremony was great fun.

Apart from the above fun and happening Anton performed a Spanish song while I sang a very famous Indian song called Tum Hi Ho. Everyone loved it, but Salem who follows Bollywood music and knew this song very well told me that he wanted to shoot himself while listening to me! I am glad there is no video of me out there! Here's one of a Canadian groom singing to his Indian bride:

Watch the bride's face! This video went viral – five million views is not something you get every day.

My special thanks to Smbat Lputian for organizing such an extraordinary event with great conditions. There is absolutely no doubt that if I am invited once again in 2016 I would love to go back to Lake Sevan.

The man who made this event possible: the President
of the Armenian Chess Federation GM Smbat Lputian

In order to get a feel of the entire event, you must have a look at this beautifully edited, fast-paced video made by the organizers.

Note: This Youtube video contains the background music "Fuego" by Bond (Google Play, AmazonMP3, iTunes), and is automatically blocked in some countries where copyright claims are imperious protected by national organisations – e.g. the accursed GEMA in Germany. You can get a regional spoofing addon to watch the video – it is well worth it, people.

Final standings of Lake Sevan 2015

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN You 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.