Myanmar Open won by Short and Belous (1/2)

The above picture is taken from the Thai Open 2011. GM Zaw Win Lay (left) was the first
and only grandmaster of Myanmar. One of his most notable results was a draw with the
former World Champion, Anatoly Karpov, in the Japfa Classic in 2000.

The tournament was held in the Central Hotel, Yangon

The event was organized by the Myanmar Chess Federation and was generously funded by the Kasparov Chess Foundation of Asia Pacific. The time control of the event was one hour thirty minutes plus thirty seconds increment from the start. The schedule was quite hectic as it consisted of three double rounds. But there was a rest day on the 27th of November after four rounds. The tournament became the centre of attraction for the spectators due to the participation of two stalwarts of the game.

With an Elo of 2677, Sergey Tiviakov was the top seed of the event

The 1993 World Championship Challenger, Nigel Short (2661) was the second seed

In addition to these two player, there were eight more GMs that included Vladimir Belous, Nguyen Duc Hoa, Jahongir Vakhidov, Arun Prasad, M. R. Venkatesh, Vishnu Prasanna and Alexander Fominyh. So the tournament was quite strong, in spite of the many unrated players also participating in the event. After five rounds, it was the Indian GM Vishnu Prasanna (2463) who was in the sole lead with a perfect score of 5.0/5.

Vishnu was the early leader but later lost steam and finished sixth with a score of 7.0/9

A group of four players Tiviakov, Short, Nguyen and Arun followed the leader with 4.5/5. The sixth round turned out to be the most crucial round of the event as there were a lot of decisive results. Vishnu’s run was halted by Sergey Tiviakov when he played an excellent game in the Rossolimo Sicilian from the white side. Tiviakov’s prior experience in the line against Caruana and Kuzubov came handy as he won the game in smooth positional style.

With this win Tiviakov moved into the sole lead as the other 2650+ GM suffered a catastrophic defeat  at the hands of GM M. R. Venkatesh. Venkatesh’s laptop crashed after the tournament and he immediately went to Malaysia to participate in another event.  He worked on the ChessBase application on his android mobile device and sent the following analysis. Big thanks to him for that.

M. R. Venkatesh: The man who beat the eventual winner

Analysis by GM M. R. Venkatesh

In the seventh round Tiviakov drew his game and was joined by three players: Nguyen Duc Hoa, Arun Prasad and Gong Qianyun. All four of them led the tournament with 6.0/7.

GM Nguyen Duc Hoa (2507) played a very fine tournament and finished third

Arun Prasad turned out to be the hero of the eighth round as he beat the super solid Sergey Tiviakov. It was a game where Tiviakov made a small tactical oversight and was punished for it.

With a win over Tiviakov, Arun became the favourite to win the tournament with just one round remaining

After his loss in the sixth round, Nigel made a steady comeback by winning the next two
rounds and was now with a chance to finish at the top

Before the start of the last round, Short tweeted the following:

The last round pairings were as follows. Arun Prasad who was the sole leader with 7.0/8 was to play GM Vladimir Belous on the top board while Nigel Short (6.5) was pitted against the young Uzbeki GM Jahongir Vakhidov (6.5). It was a dramatic last round with Nigel once again proving that he has excellent control on his nerves and overcoming his opponent in a complicated Trompowsky.

Arun Prasad who had a superior tie-break needed only a draw with the White pieces against Belous. But he seemed in no mood to play sterile chess. He played as per the needs of the position and sacrificed two pawns for an attack. By making some excellent moves he was close to victory, when he blundered. His position immediately deteriorated and Belous showed some good technique to win the game.

It was heartbreaking for the Indian player, and it meant that Belous now joined Nigel at the top with 7.5/9.

The two joint winners Belous (left) and Short hold the elegant knight trophy

Even though the players are holding cheques of different amounts, the prize money was shared.

Vladimir Belous is a 21-year-old talented, young grandmaster from Russia. He has wins over
a number of strong players like Nepomniachtchi (in rapid), Inarkiev (2683), Riazentsev (2692),
and more, and among his notable performances is his win of the very strong Moscow Open in
2011 as well as the Bondarevsky Memorial 2013 when he won with a score of 9/9.

Final standings

Click for complete standings

This report holds special importance as none of the games from this tournament have been published anywhere on the internet. Huge thanks to Tiviakov, Short, Venkatesh and Arun for providing the games.

Part II will be released shortly and contains an exclusive interview with the champion of the event Nigel Short plus some wonderful pictures from the city of Yangon.

Pictures provided by Sergey Tiviakov and Peter Long