Qatar 2015 round six: race for the title

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Qatar Masters 2015 round six – a race for the title

Report from Doha by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal

It was a quiet day at the top boards at the sixth round of the Qatar Masters Open 2015. The first five boards ended in draws. This meant that Magnus Carlsen, who is on 5.0/6 now, still has a half point lead over the field. However, many players who were on 3.5/5, won their games, and 13 of them trail the World Champion with a score of 4.5/6. So let us dive in to the round six action:

Really, you're going to play 1…h5?!! Magnus Carlsen came two minutes late to the game
against Wesley So and was simply adjusting his pieces. He replied with 1…e5 and played
the Chigorin Variation of the Closed Ruy Lopez. The game ended in a tame draw in 39 moves.

Vladimir Kramnik played an endgame variation in the Bg5 Grunfeld with the white pieces against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. It seemed just like the position that Kramnik would like to milk, but Mamedyarov was alert and gave his opponent absolutely no chances to try for a win.

Kramnik was extremely focused before the game, and in order to sustain his energy level...

…brought along a supply of walnuts, dates and RedBull!

After a draw with Kramnik, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov played some football in the night.
We can confirm that he is an excellent goalkeeper.

One person who will be livid with himself for not being able to convert
a completely winning position is surely Anish Giri

Top players like Anish take special care to keep tabs on all the top level encounters that take place. And most of the times they also have an improvement over some of the theoretically important encounters. So when Topalov lost in the Najdorf just 20 days ago to Vishy Anand at the London Chess Classic 2015 Giri took special care to prepare a novelty that came in handy in his game against Surya Shekhar Ganguly. Very soon the Dutch grandmaster had a nearly winning position. However, the Indian player kept fighting and was rewarded at the end with the half point when Giri couldn’t convert his advantage.

Everyone had left, all hope seemed to have been lost, but Ganguly fought on

Sergey Karjakin was under some pressure against…

…Dariusz Swiercz, but the game eventually ended in a draw

China’s Li Chao and Yu Yangyi faced off against each other. Li Chao with an extra pawn
had quite decent winning chances in the game, but the defending champion
fought tenaciously and the peace treaty was signed in an equal pawn rook endgame.

Li Chao always brings with himself a small bottle of some sort of oil and water with special kind of leaves.
Any reader who knows what these secret Chinese ingredients could be please tell us in the comments section below!

Pentala Harikrishna had absolutely no difficulties in beating Vladimir Fedoseev
from the black side of a Queen’s Indian

Dmitry Jakovenko showed some high class preparation to score a full point against Viktor Bologan

The line essayed by Jakovenko against the a6 Slav is one that is pretty sharp. It has a reputation of being quite a good variation for black. However, Jakovenko came well prepared to the game and showed some new ideas which haven’t been tried before. Bologan responded well up to a certain point, but later he went astray and even fell in to a mate in one! When in the press conference Dmitry was asked whether this line has been refuted thanks to his analysis, the Russian player replied, “This line in the a6 Slav is something which Tomashevsky plays. And Evgeny’s lines can never be refuted! He will surely have some improvement prepared for the black side.” Svidler, too, agreed, saying, “It’s better to wait for Tomashevsky to come up with an improvement rather than wasting your time in trying to find the best way for Black to play!”

Dmitry analyzing his game with Svidler at the post-game conference

For all those who want to learn the art of positional play
take a look at Ivanchuk’s classy effort against Baris Esen

Ni Hua didn’t have a particularly enjoyable football session, but in his game against
Vidit Gujrathi he gave a model lesson in why space is an important factor in chess

Wei Yi is slowly coming back in to the groove. He is now on 3.5/6. Today he beat his German opponent Stefan Bromberger with an aesthetically pleasing queen sacrifice.

NR Vignesh, who had a scintillating performance of 2809 before the start of the round, drew against Hou Yifan in the sixth round. It must be said that the young lad was very much on the verge of winning this game.

Surviving the sixth round by the skin of her teeth: the strongest woman player in the world Hou Yifan

A banana, an oat biscuit and a dark flask are the things Hou Yifan brings every day

India’s famous videographer Vijay Kumar, who has been tirelessly producing daily round-up videos at the Qatar Masters, hurt his right hand when he slipped in his room. However, the dedicated soul that he is, he shot and edited the round six video, which we now present to you:

Apart from the round’s action the video also contains interviews with Pentala Harikrishna,
Ruslan Ponomariov, Dmitry Jakovenko, Krishnan Sasikiran, M.R. Venkatesh and Abhimanyu Puranik

Rest Day excursion

Qatar lies in the region of the Arabian Desert. The country receives just five days rainfall per year on average. It was a huge surprise for all the players that on the 25th of December, the rest day, it started to pour. This sort of dampened the spirits of many who preferred to spend time in their rooms rather than going to the excursion and getting wet. Yet a few of the players had absolutely no issues with the rain and the organizers took them to the Al-Shaqab stables.

Al Shaqab is Qatar Foundation’s equestrian centre, where Arabian horses are trained. Founded in 1992 by Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, Al Shaqab is now the region’s leading equine education resource centre and features the breeding of Arabian horses.

Spread out over 980,000 square metres and with a stable capacity for more than 400 horses,
Al Shaqab stands out for its dynamic architectural design, with a central horseshoe shape

A sauna for horses!

Wesley So and his foster mother Lotis Key had a nice relaxed time with each other

A six minute interview with Wesley So where he speaks about preparation,
why he prefers two rounds a day and who will win the Candidates 2016

Tournament Director Mohamed Al Modiahki takes a selfie with a GM race horse!

Sergey Karjakin takes a selfie with the other race horse!

The women in the Carlsen family: Ingrid, Ellen, Signe and Sigrun

Ellen feeds a horse its favourite fruit – apples!

Gazal Al Shaqab, Marwan Al Shaqab and Al Adeed Al Shaqab, three World Champion horses

Creating such champion horses is not an easy task. They have to indulge in rigorous training every day. In the above picture you can see a horse being forced to walk in the water in order to increase its stamina! Here’s a video which shows the entire process:

Yes he can fly! Magnus never ever misses a chance to play his second favourite sport!

Round seven will be one of the most crucial rounds of the entire event as Magnus Carlsen will play against Anish Giri. Yu Yangyi will take on Vladimir Kramnik, with the white pieces. The Big Vlad will be searching for his revenge, as a loss to the Chinese player was exactly the reason why he couldn’t win the Qatar Masters 2014.

Photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Pairings and results for round 6 (26.12.2015 at 15:00 local time)

Top rankings after round six

Standings of all 132 players

Schedule for Playchess Commentary

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