The Abu Dhabi Masters was held from the 23rd to 31st of August 2015 in the capital city of UAE. 120 players from as many as 35 countries, with 44 grandmasters, participated in this event. 22 players had a rating of more than 2600. It was s a nine round Swiss tournament with the rate of play being one hour 30 minutes + 30 seconds increment per move. There were ten prizes and they were not shared. The winner took home US $12,000. This is the final report. You can read the previous articles on this tournament here. It ended with the following results:
| Rk. | SNo | Ti. | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB2 | TB3 | w-we | rtg+/- |
| 1 | 12 | GM | Grandelius Nils | SWE | 2628 | 7.0 | 2609 | 53.0 | 1.92 | 19.2 |
| 2 | 24 | GM | Kravtsiv Martyn | UKR | 2599 | 7.0 | 2601 | 53.5 | 2.16 | 21.6 |
| 3 | 5 | GM | Jobava Baadur | GEO | 2664 | 7.0 | 2596 | 51.5 | 1.24 | 12.4 |
| 4 | 7 | GM | Areshchenko Alexander | UKR | 2661 | 7.0 | 2565 | 50.0 | 1.11 | 11.1 |
| 5 | 4 | GM | Rapport Richard | HUN | 2671 | 7.0 | 2550 | 48.0 | 0.86 | 8.6 |
| 6 | 27 | GM | Salem A.R. Saleh | UAE | 2595 | 6.5 | 2571 | 48.5 | 1.44 | 14.4 |
| 7 | 22 | GM | Prohaszka Peter | HUN | 2602 | 6.5 | 2553 | 45.5 | 1.09 | 10.9 |
| 8 | 10 | GM | Jones Gawain C B | ENG | 2647 | 6.5 | 2529 | 46.0 | 0.37 | 3.7 |
| 9 | 17 | GM | Gupta Abhijeet | IND | 2619 | 6.5 | 2517 | 49.0 | 0.53 | 5.3 |
| 10 | 13 | GM | Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo | VEN | 2625 | 6.0 | 2584 | 50.5 | 0.78 | 7.8 |
| 11 | 3 | GM | Kryvoruchko Yuriy | UKR | 2697 | 6.0 | 2574 | 48.5 | -0.19 | -1.9 |
| 12 | 19 | GM | Swiercz Dariusz | POL | 2617 | 6.0 | 2568 | 49.5 | 0.60 | 6.0 |
| 13 | 9 | GM | Akopian Vladimir | ARM | 2647 | 6.0 | 2556 | 45.5 | 0.14 | 1.4 |
| 14 | 15 | GM | Petrosian Tigran L. | ARM | 2623 | 6.0 | 2526 | 47.5 | 0.16 | 1.6 |
| 15 | 37 | GM | Vaibhav Suri | IND | 2552 | 6.0 | 2526 | 45.0 | 0.91 | 9.1 |
| 16 | 16 | GM | Rakhmanov Aleksandr | RUS | 2620 | 6.0 | 2504 | 46.5 | -0.13 | -1.3 |
| 17 | 6 | GM | Sjugirov Sanan | RUS | 2664 | 6.0 | 2489 | 44.5 | -0.67 | -6.7 |
| 18 | 2 | GM | Almasi Zoltan | HUN | 2700 | 6.0 | 2479 | 43.0 | -1.06 | -10.6 |
| 19 | 18 | GM | Onischuk Vladimir | UKR | 2618 | 6.0 | 2455 | 43.0 | -0.56 | -5.6 |
| 20 | 48 | IM | Sadzikowski Daniel | POL | 2480 | 6.0 | 2359 | 40.0 | -0.07 | -0.7 |
Martyn Kravtsiv played a fine tournament with wins over strong players like Kuzubov, Jones and Gupta. He gained 21 Elo points and had a rating performance of 2780. Although he played solid and high quality chess throughout, one cannot deny that fortune favoured him at a very critical juncture of the tournament – the penultimate round against Abhijeet Gupta.
The creative genius from Georgia, Baadur Jobava, had a rating of 2727 just a few months ago. He is now down to 2664. But a victory in HZ tournament in Holland in the first week of August and now a third place in the Abu Dhabi Masters means that he is on 2683 and clawing his way back to the top. With renewed motivation and the impending birth of his son in a week or two from now, Baadur is the man to watch out for.
Jobava's final round game against Tigran Petrosian started as a quiet English Opening. In spite of having the white pieces Petrosian clearly misplayed the opening and was left with quite a passive position. Baadur executed a beautiful pawn sacrifice and before you even knew it, the game was over! Have a look at this interesting battle:
The little c-pawn’s march forced White’s resignation
A consistent performer, Alexander Areshchenko scored 7.0/9 and was
the only person to beat the eventual tournament winner Nils Grandelius.
Fifth place, Richard Rapport. Just 19 years old and he is already one of the most exciting players in the world. Things were going just perfectly for this Hungarian prodigy until March 2015. Then came the horrid month of April when Rapport bled rating points profusely. He lost 17 Elo points at the Aeroflot open and then 21 at the World Team Championships 2015. Before he knew it, he was down from 2710 to 2671. A further 21 points loss at Biel brought him to 2649. 7.0/9 at the Abu Dhabi Open helped Richie to gain back nine Elo points. There is absolutely no doubt that he is a world class player and this event might just be the one he needed to resurrect his career.
Rapport’s final round game against Dariusz Swiercz was filled with ups and downs. First Rapport had a nice opening edge, but later his opponent equalized, only to make a few mistakes and hand back the advantage to the Hungarian. Just when it seemed it was all over and Rapport would win the game, he gave Swiercz a chance to obtain the half-point with a perpetual check. With very less time on the clock Swiercz missed the draw and went on to lose the game.
Richard Rapport vs Dariusz Swiercz – in the game between two of the most talented
youngsters in the world it was Rapport who had better control over his nerves and won the game
The man in form and the reigning Asian Champion Salem Saleh scored crucial victories
in the last two rounds against Yuriy Kuzubov and G. N. Gopal to finish sixth
With wins over Zbigniew Pakleza and Eduardo Iturrizaga, Peter Prohaszka (above) played a fine event, gaining ten Elo points and finishing seventh. Peter is a full-time chess professional. He left his academic studies in order to devote more time to the game.
After a string of not so great events, Gawain Jones is back in good form finishing eighth.
You can read about his experience in Abu Dhabi from this article he has written on his blog.
Abhijeet Gupta was going strong at 5.5/7 when he blundered and got mated in two moves against Martyn Kravtsiv (check the replay board above) in a drawn position. He was immediately compensated for it in the last round when in a drawn endgame his opponent, GM Debashis Das, blundered his queen in just one move. You win some, you lose some – that’s what chess is all about! 6.5/9 and ninth place for the Indian grandmaster.
A tenth place finish and 6.0/9 for Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli was a good achievement considering that
he did not play the first round (he received half point) as he was playing in the Portugal Team Championships.
IM Haridas Pascua (2447) from Philippines faced six players above 2600 and scored an amazing
3.5/6 against them. It did not come as a surprise that he made a GM norm in this event.
There was no special prize for the best women player in the tournament, but if there was one, then it would have gone to GM Harika Dronavalli (above), who scored 5.5/9. Harika beat all her lower rated opponents and drew five out of the six games against higher rated players, including Gawin Jones, Alexander Kovchan, Salem Saleh, Gabor Papp and Evgeny Romanov. A very solid performance.
Sanan Sjugirov scored 9.5/11 to win the Abu Dhabi Blitz tournament which was held on the free day. He received US $1000 for this feat. There were two more prizes which were won by Aleksandr Rakhmanov ($700) and Yuriy Kuzubov ($500).
The open tournament (below 2000 Elo) was won by Turan Asgarova
from Azerbaijan. She scored 8.0/9 and received US $2000.
Vijay Kumar was in Abu Dhabi and made lovely daily video reports which you can find below:
Round seven
Round eight
Round nine and closing ceremony
Daily live commentary was done by GM Dmitri Komarov. Below you can find the commentary of the last round. Commentaries of other rounds over here.
We asked you in our previous article who this unknown sweater man was.
And the right answer is: GM Zoltan Almasi
Part three with players, personalities and sights of Abu Dhabi will be published soon.
Pictures by Amruta Mokal
| ChessBase is providing detailed coverage of the Abu Dhabi Masters 2015. The games are being be broadcast live 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 and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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