Abu Dhabi Masters: Dubov takes the title

Three horse race

This year, nine rounds of classical chess turned out to be inadequate to determine a clear winner at the 25^th Abu Dhabi Masters. At the conclusion of the final round, Daniil Dubov, Anton Korobov and Salem AR Saleh had finished with an unbeaten score of 7½/9. After the tie-breaks were applied, Dubov was declared the winner while Korobov and Saleh took the second and third places respectively.

By the seventh round, Korobov and Dubov had emerged as tournament leaders and were pitted against one another. If either player had won, he would have taken sole lead. But the clash of the leaders turned out to be a rather dull affair. The players shook hands just 18 moves into the game. 

A strategic weapon against 1.d4: The Queen's Indian Defense

The Queen's Indian Defense is one of the most solid and rich openings against 1.d4. Together with the Nimzo-Indian and the Catalan it forms the so called "Classical Setup", which any player should know. Victor Bologan calls the b7 bishop “the soul of the opening, the most important piece...keep it active”. Every chess enthusiast, from beginner to high level player, can profit from this DVD. Enrich your chess vocabulary, be open to new ideas: play the Queen’s Indian!

Saleh, who was only half-a-point behind, made the most of this development by scoring a convincing win over tournament’s top seed, Le Quang Liem with the white pieces. A Queen's Indian Defence had led the players into the following position. Saleh, as could be seen, had begun to build pressure on the kingside.

The position had already begun to tip in White's favour by this point when Le made a decisive error in playing 25...Re7. Saleh instantly pounced in sacrificing a full rook after 26.Nxh7 Nxh7 27.Rxh7 Kxh7 and 28.Be5 with deadly threats to the black king. Le limped on for around ten more moves in what was just a mopping up operation for white.

No matter what the result, chess players are always happy playing chess | Photo: Abu Dhabi Chess Festival Twitter

While Saleh had joined Korobov and Dubov as the joint leader of the tournament, this leader trio did not last too long. Korobov raced past his two co-leaders by defeating Richard Rapport in his very next game. Saleh and Dubov drew among themselves in the meantime.

In their game, Korobov and Rapport also discussed a Queen’s Indian Defence. Korobov had the white pieces and was pushing all through the game. He had given up a pawn on his 27th turn in order to break into Black’s queenside. He even switched wings with his 32.g4 to find something concrete. But while he had the better position, it wasn’t clear how he was to convert it. And then, on his 49th turn, Rapport cracked. 

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Endings with rook and minor piece against rook and minor piece occur very frequently, even more often than rook endings, yet there's not much literature on them. This endgame DVD fills this gap. The four different material constellations rook and knight vs rook and knight, rooks and opposite coloured (and same coloured ) bishops and rook and bishop vs rook and knight are dealt with. In view of the different material constellations Karsten Mueller explains many guidelines like e.g. "With knights even a small initiative weighs heavily".

White is better here but there’s still a lot of work to be done. After Rapport’s 49…g5, however, White just got a winning position. Play continued 50.Rxd6 Rxd6 51.Nxd6 Kxd6 52.fxg5 hxg5 53.hxg5 and it was curtains. 

Korobov sped past his rivals with a fine win against Rapport in the penultimate round | Photo: Abu Dhabi Masters Twitter

This development in the penultimate round naturally made Korobov the favourite to win the tournament. If he had managed to win just one more game, he would have finished as the sole leader. But Korobov did not even try to win in the finale. He agreed to a draw with black against Gabriel Sargissian only ten moves into the game. This draw gave Saleh and Dubov a chance to reunite with Korobov in the first place and both grandmasters made the most of the opportunity. 

GM Saleh had the black pieces against Aravindh Chithambaram of India on board three and was struggling in a Sicilian Najdorf for a large part of the game. The Indian teenager made some errors, however, and allowed Saleh to come back in the game. On his 33rd turn, Saleh came up with an enterprising queen sacrifice that complicated the game significantly. 

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Black just took on b2 with his knight here. When white went 33.Rb4, Saleh uncorked 33...Rxb4! After 34.Nxb4 Rxe3, black is suddenly threatening a mate on e1. 35.Re2 was necessary here but Aravindh blundered immediately with 35.Nc6? and ended up resigning three moves later.

Aravindh Chithambaram fell prey to some razor sharp tactics of GM Salem Saleh in the final round | Photo: Marwa Safar

On board two, Dubov drifted away from the well-trodden paths of theory in an Open Catalan on his seventh turn and gave up a pawn with 7.b3. 

The Catalan: A complete repertoire for White!

The Catalan is one of the most solid openings for White. It forms part of the large and strong fianchetto family in which White builds his strategy mainly around the bishop on g2. Grandmaster Victor Bologan covers all of Black’s replies to the Catalan, some of which can even transpose to other openings such as the Tarrasch System and the Queen’s Indian. Suffice it to say that the Catalan rules!

The computer evaluates this sacrifice to lead to an equal position. However, by the middle-game, Dubov found himself in serious trouble.

White is seriously worse here. Black's a-pawn looks particularly threatening while White's kingside attack is still a long way from leading anywhere. Nonetheless, play on the king's wing was all White had and that's all he could hustle with. Over the next few moves, that's exactly what Dubov did — he tried to scare black with an attack. 

White is downright busted here, but that is easy to say with an engine by your side; the position is razor sharp. White has just played 42.Rh3, letting the 'a' pawn run down the board. Play continued 42...a2 43.Rh3 and after 43...Qh5, the human reaction against White's threat of a queen invasion on h7, the position turns equal!

The computer suggests 43...Kg8 here. After 44.Qh7, black has 44...Kf8 45.Qh6+ and 45...Qg7 and all of White's pyrotechnics fizzle out.

After the text move, however, black lost two queens back to back — the one he has on the board and the one he had acquired by promoting his 'a' pawn. Dubov proceeded with 44.Qf4 a1=Q 45.Rxh5 gxh5 46.Rxa1 Rxa1. 

From being clearly winning, Black has reached a complex position in a span of just five moves. But even here, the complications did not end. A couple of moves later, Cheparinov inexplicably gave up an exchange and ended up resigning after Dubov managed to hack off Black's queenside pawns.

Norms galore

While featuring all the spectacular battles between the bigwigs, the 25th Abu Dhabi Masters also witnessed several young talents earn GM and IM norms. In fact, two teenaged International Masters — Nihal Sarin and Arjun Erigaisi — earned their Grandmaster titles in the Emirati capital!

Sarin had had a splendid start to the tournament. Having scored 5 points in his first seven games, Sarin only needed half-a-point in the penultimate round to clinch his final GM norm — and with it, the Grandmaster title — with a round to spare.

Fortunately for him, his opponent, IM Teymur Kuybokarov, was also in a similar situation. He too needed a draw to earn his GM norm with a round to spare. The result of the game, quite obviously, therefore, was a tepid 21 move draw.

Nihal Sarin became India's 53rd Grandmaster after a quick draw in the penultimate round | Photo: Marwa Safar

Arjun Erigaisi was another young Indian to score his final Grandmaster norm in Abu Dhabi. Interestingly, Arjun did not have even an IM norm to his name at the start of the year. All of his six norms — three IM norms and three GM norms — have come within just eight months! Needless to say, he also crossed the 2500 rating threshold in this time. 

In the final round of the tournament, Arjun was in a must-win situation against IM Krishan Teja and won a fine game on demand!

Arjun Erigaisi had to score in a must-win situation to get his final GM norm | Photo: Amruta Mokal

IM P Iniyan was yet another Indian teenager to have scored his GM norm. In the first eight rounds, Iniyan had scored 4.5 points, which included a win against GM Sanan Sjugirov who was rated more than 200 points over him! The only loss Iniyan had suffered this far was in the second round against the eventual winner of the tournament, GM Daniil Dobov. In the penultimate round, Iniyan faced Martyn Kravtsiv against whom the 16-year-old played a sharp tactical battle.

In a Classical Sicilian, Iniyan was forced to give up his queen in order to avoid mate in the middlegame. Kravtsiv was clearly winning after this but a blunder on the 46th move allowed Iniyan to wriggle out with perpetual checks and earn his title with a round to spare.

With a lot of determination and a bit of luck, IM P Iniyan managed to hold Martyn Kravtsiv in round 8 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Harsha Bharathakoti was the fourth GM norm scorer of the tournament. On his way towards making his final GM norm, Harsha scored four straight wins in his last four rounds, defeating strong GMs like Daniele Vocaturo and Levan Pantsulaia. He also gained 20 rating points on the way, taking his rating up to 2470. All he needs now to become a grandmaster is 30 rating points. 

Harsha Bharathakoti earned his final GM norm scoring 4/4 in his last four games | Photo: Marwa Safar

Final standings (top 20)

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