Qatar R03: Chess and football in Doha

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Qatar Masters 2015: And then there were two!

Report from Doha by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal

We are only in the third round of the Qatar Masters Open 2015 and the players are already showing signs of tiredness and fatigue! We witnessed innumerable games where one of the players simply blundered horribly or fell in to a mating net. And we are not talking about untitled players here – they were full-fledged grandmasters who had lots of time on their clocks! We will come to these highly interesting moments in a bit. But first let us start with a guest who inaugurated the third round of the tournament.

Xavier Hernandez with the tournament director Mohamed Al Mediahki and his wife,
former Women’s World Champion Zhu Chen

Xavier "Xavi" Hernández Creus is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Qatari club Al Sadd SC. Xavi is the first player in Barcelona's history to play 150 international matches. Highly regarded for his humble persona and team ethos, Xavi is viewed as being the embodiment of the tiki-taka passing style of play, and is considered to be one of the greatest central midfielders of all time. Many count him as Spain's greatest ever player. Here's a video showing the emotional farewell he was given in Barcelona.

It is a rare sight to find two people who are the best in their
respective fields posing together for the photographers

Naturally chess players who are big football fans
rued missing the opportunity to meet an all-time-great

Round three started with nine players on 2.0/2. On the top board we had a pairing which we could have well seen in an elite Round Robin event. It was Anish Giri (2784) against Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2723).

Wojtaszek had lost against Giri at the World Cup 2015 quarter-finals in Baku

The game began as a 6.g3 Variation in the Najdorf. The game bordered on the edge of equality and slight advantage for White almost throughout the struggle. It seemed as if the players would agree to a draw at any moment, but Anish kept finding ways to pose micro problems to his opponent. When you have to continuously keep finding the best defensive resources, there comes a time when you run low on energy, and it is exactly at such moments that blunders occur. This is precisely what happened with Radoslaw, who simply collapsed on move 58 and resigned the game on the 60th move.

You are in Anish’s (White’s) shoes and it’s your turn to finish off the game. What would you do?

With this win Anish became the second player to reach the perfect score of 3.0/3. A few hours before his game ended Li Chao had already scored a fine victory over S.P. Sethuraman to keep his tally at 100%. The Chinese grandmaster initially came to the game with moderate ambitions and would have been satisfied with a draw with the black pieces. However Sethuraman was caught off guard in the opening, thanks to a rare variation employed by Li Chao, and immediately after that things looked highly unpleasant for the Indian player. The rest of the game was a perfect demonstration by the Chinese number two (behind Ding Liren) who scored a flawless victory.

4…exd4 is the most common variation in this line of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted.
Li Chao’s 4…Nc6 is rare and threw his opponent off balance

Li Chao scored an almost effortless victory over S.P. Sethuraman

With these three wins in the event, Li Chao has gained 8.5 Elo points and now has a live rating of 2758! He is fourteenth in the world and is just eight rating points away from Ding Liren, who is on 2766. It might well be possible that by the end of this tournament we will have a new Chinese number one.

Magnus Carlsen dispatched Daniil Yuffa (2504) in just 27 moves

330 Elo points separated the players and Magnus had the white pieces. One could be forgiven if one assumed that the World Champion was going to have an easy day at the office. But anyone who saw Daniil dismantling Victor Bologan in the second round knows that the 18-year-old Russian is quite an under-rated opponent. He immediately put Magnus under some pressure by playing out the first twelve moves of theory without thinking. Clearly Yuffa had come well prepared to the game. For his 13th move Magnus thought for an entire 40 minutes!

This can be an excellent position to train your creative thinking. It is White (Carlsen) to play.
He thought for 40 minutes and found an original idea. Can you do the same?

Magnus came up with an excellent plan of lifting his rook to the fourth rank and pushing his h-pawn down the board. While the rook lift had been played before, by the late American GM Aleksander Wojtkiewicz, the h-pawn push was Magnus’ original idea. The pawn reached h6 and played a crucial role in the entire game to create mating threats on the black king. Magnus’ play was extremely accurate and he carved out a fine victory.

Magnus and Daniil discuss a few variations blindfold after the game

Magnus now faces his first 2600+ opponent in the event – Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2663) in the fourth round. The Polish grandmaster is the World Junior silver medalist and also the winner of the 2015 Lake Sevan Invitational. This is just the kind of duel that the spectators were looking forward to – a young, ambitious and upcoming 2650+ player facing the World Champion.

The miraculous save of the day was definitely by
Vladimir Kramnik in his game against Daniele Vocaturo

The Italian grandmaster Vocaturo played the Italian Game (!) and had the ex-World Champion on the ropes. The opening went well for Kramnik, and by 25th move things looked round about equal. But then Vocaturo started to gradually outplay his much higher rated opponent. When the time control was reached on the 40th move, Daniele was already three pawns up with a clearly winning position. Gaining such an advantage against a world class player is only half work done, because these top guys are so good at not giving up and finding minute resources. In fact while you are gaining an advantage your entire focus is on the game – all that you want to do is play the best moves. However when you are already three pawns up and close to winning a lot of other things start entering your mind. “Am I really beating the great Vladimir Kramnik, how will I celebrate tonight, what will my friends say?” These are some of the thoughts that go through the mind of a player who is about to score a huge upset. In such situations it is very easy to go wrong and lose all your advantage. I am not sure if something similar happened to Vocaturo, but he played quite recklessly in the final part of the game and this allowed Kramnik to save the half point.

That looks like dangerous counterplay! Daniele Vocaturo missed his chance
of scoring the biggest victory of his chess career to date

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov played a superb game against Alex Lenderman

Mamedyarov in a creative mood is a treat for chess fans. When Alex Lenderman tried to attack his opponent’s rook with a minor piece by moves like …Ba3 or …Nb4, Shakhriyar had had enough. He sacrificed an exchange and went for a direct attack on the black king. The game had beautiful ideas which were executed, some superb defensive moves which were overlooked and a sparkling attack which is not so apparent at first sight. For a person writing a book on chess puzzles this game can provide wealth of examples.

Alexandra Kosteniuk scored quite an upset by beating B. Adhiban (2669). Have a look
at how the Indian grandmaster allowed a helpmate in a perfectly fine position:

Ever since Alexandra Kosteniuk has married Pavel Tregubov, her performances have been quite excellent. Want to know what Pavel’s take is on this? Watch the youtube video by Vijay Kumar below:

In this video, which has been captured and edited by Vijay Kumar, you can not only find footage of the third round but also Anish Giri, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alex Ipatov, Pavel Tregubov and many more

In Hou Yifan’s list of crazy games her third round bout
against Shardul Gagare would be right at the top!

In a dead drawn position, Ni Hua’s opponent Harika Dronavalli blundered a mate in one

After beating Tregubov in the first round, 12-year-old Firouzja Alireza once again impressed
everyone by showing some superb defensive skills in the third round against Rasmus Svane

One of the great things about the organization in Qatar is the wonderful transportation from the official hotel to the tournament hall provided to the players. No matter what time your game ends there is always a car or bus waiting for you to take you to the hotel.

The Carlsen family sans Magnus. Mother Sigrun, daughters Ellen, Signe, Ingrid and father Henrik

Who is this world class player who requires complete silence to calculate his variations?
Please write down your answer in the comments section below.

Nana Dzagnidze has had quite a horrible start to her campaign.
She is on 0.5/3 and is already losing 16 Elo points.

GM Irina Krush also has a miserable start with 0.5/3

It was a good day for the Giri/Guramishvili duo as they both brought home the full point. However, Sopiko had to play out an endgame of R + B + N vs R for nearly 40 moves before she could checkmate her opponent!

Friends for a lifetime – Dorsa Derakhshani and Alina Bivol

Kema Goryaeva and Maria Emelianova with the national bird of Qatar – the Falcon

All photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Pairings/Results of Round 3 on 2015/12/22 at 15:00

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