Recently, we reported extensively from the Qatar Open, which was one of the strongest opens ever to be held in the history of the game. It has not even been a fortnight since that event ended when another powerful tournament is due to begin in Al Ain, UAE from the 19th of December 2014. The tournament has 44 grandmasters and 19 International Masters, making it to be an event worthy of grabbing world-wide attention. As many as 17 players have an Elo of more than 2600.
I started my journey from the Mumbai airport
which has been
recently renovated and is one of the best airports in the world
A three hour flight from Mumbai would take
me to Dubai. Not to mention that I was
extremely excited to travel in Emirates Airlines, which is known for its
splendid hospitality.
The wonderfully decorated Dubai Airport is approximately 150 kms away from Al Ain…
... but with roads like these it takes you only over an hour to reach!
The five star Hili Rayhaan by Rotana group is the official hotel
Festive atmosphere and a Christmas tree welcome you in the hotel lobby
The rooms are luxurious and comfortable
The coffee lounge
The dining area is huge and vast and has space for all the players
Not to forget, the chefs are the making players happy by preparing some delicious dishes
When I went to see the tournament hall, I realised that a rapid tournament was due to begin in an hour. Even though I was tired from the journey, the strength of the tournament convinced me that it would give me some good practise before the main event.
The rapid tournament had seven rounds and was played with a time control of ten minutes plus five seconds increment. The special part being, all the games were played on the digital board and were shown live.
Strong Ukrainians: Alexander Kovchan, Vladimir
Onischuk, Mihailo Oleksienko,
Martyn Kravtsiv and Yuriy Kryvoruchko
The smiling Indians: Abhijit Gupta, Vishnu Prasanna and Shyam Sundar
Cheerful: Viorel Iordachescu from Moldova
Ashot Vardepetyan was the chief arbiter of
the event. He was
chief arbiter of the Anand-Carlsen match of 2013 in Chennai.
The top seed was Rauf Mamedov (2707) from Azerbaijan
The Armenians too have sent their best guys – one of them is Tigran Petrosian ...
... the other is Arman Pashikian.
But it was the third Armenian, Samvel Ter-Sahakyan
who finished a one of the runners-up
with an impressive score of 6.0/7. His only loss came to the eventual winner…
... GM Salem A. R. Saleh from UAE who played
some fantastic
games to score 6.0/7 with five wins and one draw
Untitled Document Final Ranking after 7 Rounds
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | |
| 1 | 15 | GM | Salem A.R. Saleh | UAE | 2562 | 6.0 | 29.00 | 34.5 | 26.5 |
| 2 | 13 | GM | Ter-Sahakyan Samvel | ARM | 2580 | 6.0 | 24.50 | 30.5 | 24.0 |
| 3 | 2 | GM | Kryvoruchko Yuriy | UKR | 2687 | 5.5 | 26.00 | 34.0 | 22.0 |
| 4 | 14 | GM | Mchedlishvili Mikheil | GEO | 2578 | 5.5 | 21.50 | 28.5 | 23.5 |
| 5 | 21 | GM | Babujian Levon | ARM | 2471 | 5.5 | 17.75 | 25.5 | 22.0 |
| 6 | 11 | GM | Oleksienko Mikhailo | UKR | 2598 | 5.0 | 19.00 | 26.0 | 18.5 |
| 7 | 12 | GM | Kravtsiv Martyn | UKR | 2582 | 5.0 | 18.75 | 27.5 | 20.5 |
| 8 | 16 | GM | Moskalenko Viktor | ESP | 2534 | 5.0 | 18.00 | 26.5 | 20.0 |
| 9 | 17 | GM | Kovchan Alexander | UKR | 2520 | 5.0 | 18.00 | 26.5 | 20.0 |
| 10 | 8 | GM | Pashikian Arman | ARM | 2617 | 5.0 | 17.75 | 28.0 | 20.0 |
| 11 | 23 | IM | Pourramezanali Amirreza | IRI | 2461 | 5.0 | 17.75 | 27.5 | 19.0 |
| 12 | 4 | GM | Onischuk Vladimir | UKR | 2648 | 5.0 | 17.50 | 27.5 | 20.0 |
| 13 | 6 | GM | Iordachescu Viorel | MDA | 2634 | 4.5 | 20.50 | 32.0 | 20.5 |
| 14 | 3 | GM | Petrosian Tigran L. | ARM | 2655 | 4.5 | 18.75 | 30.5 | 20.0 |
| 15 | 5 | GM | Gupta Abhijeet | IND | 2640 | 4.5 | 16.75 | 29.0 | 19.5 |
| 16 | 22 | GM | Bajarani Ulvi | AZE | 2465 | 4.5 | 16.25 | 27.0 | 19.0 |
| 17 | 26 | GM | Hayrapetyan Hovik | ARM | 2441 | 4.5 | 15.75 | 27.5 | 19.5 |
| 18 | 34 | FM | Petrosyan Manuel | ARM | 2287 | 4.5 | 13.75 | 26.0 | 16.5 |
| 19 | 1 | GM | Mamedov Rauf | AZE | 2707 | 4.0 | 19.00 | 36.5 | 22.0 |
| 20 | 10 | GM | Miroshnichenko Evgenij | UKR | 2598 | 4.0 | 15.50 | 30.5 | 19.5 |
| 21 | 24 | GM | Lazarev Vladimir | FRA | 2449 | 4.0 | 14.75 | 29.5 | 19.5 |
| 22 | 30 | IM | Sagar Shah | IND | 2302 | 4.0 | 14.75 | 29.5 | 17.5 |
| 23 | 41 | Firouzja Alireza | IRI | 2085 | 4.0 | 14.00 | 29.0 | 17.0 | |
| 24 | 52 | CM | Asadli Vugar | AZE | 1959 | 4.0 | 12.25 | 27.5 | 16.0 |
| 25 | 37 | CM | Puranik Abhimanyu | IND | 2190 | 4.0 | 12.00 | 26.5 | 15.0 |
| 26 | 27 | Hilwani Talal | SYR | 2375 | 4.0 | 12.00 | 25.0 | 16.0 | |
| 27 | 38 | FM | Soozankar A.M. | IRI | 2183 | 4.0 | 11.50 | 27.0 | 16.0 |
| 28 | 47 | Abtini Hasan | SYR | 2024 | 4.0 | 11.00 | 23.5 | 13.0 | |
| 29 | 40 | Safarov Zirva | AZE | 2104 | 4.0 | 11.00 | 23.0 | 14.0 | |
| 30 | 46 | Mokal Amruta Sunil | IND | 2041 | 4.0 | 11.00 | 22.5 | 14.0 | |
| 31 | 43 | FM | Tagelsir Abubaker | SUD | 2064 | 4.0 | 10.50 | 25.0 | 13.0 |
| 32 | 29 | WGM | Soumya Swaminathan | IND | 2309 | 4.0 | 10.00 | 24.5 | 18.0 |
| 33 | 50 | Rafee Mohd Hayel | SYR | 1986 | 4.0 | 10.00 | 24.0 | 13.0 |
For this effort Salem A. R. Saleh was rewarded
with a trophy and a cash prize of $1000.
On the right is one of the chief co-ordinators of the event, Tarek Al Taher.
All the prize winners captured in one frame
Amruta Mokal won the prize of the best woman
player at the event.
She is also the photographer who took all the pictures in this report.
The main tournament will begin from the 19th of December – here is the starting list, and here, just in, the round one results.
LinksThe games are being 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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