Diego Flores first in Dubai

Eclectic field in the UAE

Scanning the starting list of the 2018 Dubai open, one is struck by the incredibly diverse turnout. The top ten players hail from Ukraine, Egypt, England, Armenia, Spain, Azerbaijan, Russia, Belarus, Argentina, India — ten different countries and four different continents! When one recognises that the winner came from Argentina, the first look would be at 2645-rated Sandro Mareco, but it was instead the 21st seed, Argentinian Champion Diego Flores who took the top spot after a key last round victory.

Flores apparently had his cake and ate it too! |Dubai Chess and Culture Club on Facebook

Top results of round nine

It was an improbable come-from-behind win for Flores, who was undefeated throughout and scored 5½ out of his last six games. In the final round with the white pieces, he played a double-fianchetto English opening and in the transition to the middle-game seems to have decided that he was serious about winning the bishop pair: 

The English Opening Vol. 1

Williams main teaching method behind this set of two DVDs is to teach you some simple yet effective set ups, without the need to rely on memorising numerous complicated variations.

You can move the pieces on the live diagram

12...Nxc4 13.Rxc4 Rad8 14.Rxg4!? A bold decision! The long-term positional sacrifice looks to gain counterplay on the light squares, and forcibly grabs the initiative, but it's extremely risky. After bashing out 14...fxg4 15.Nd2, Ganguly thought for over 10 minutes on 15...Qd7 and Flores then took nearly a half an hour to continue with 16.Nc4. Flores soon gained a pair of pawns for the exchange and had full compensation, but Ganguly attacked on the kingside and missed a strong chance to put the game out of reach:

Here the mate threat 30...Rh6! is obvious enough, but the follow up 31.Rf2 Bb4! is a bit harder to spot, aiming to interfere with the defending rook from behind. 32.h4 Qg4 33.Kh2 Rg6 is lights out.

In the game, Ganguly went for 30...Qh3 and handed the advantage to Flores. Now the same plan 31.Rf2 Bb4?! got him nowhere as after 32.a3 the bishop was forced to retreat since Be1 runs into 33.Rxf3+ exploiting Black's weak back rank.

Flores collected the f3 pawn and then came a sequence to remember:

It looks like Black has solved his bank rank issue, but Flores came up with 35.Qc7! Qa8, and now 36.Qxd6 Rxf3 37.e4 Rf8 38.a4 is picturesque, but Flores must have had trouble containing a grin when he played instead 36.Qa5! Qe8 37.Qe5! — three consecutive queen offers that must be refused. The bishop and three pawns proved to be stronger than the Indian's rook. 

A tough blow for Ganguly who failed to capitalise on his full point lead after seven rounds, losing both of his last two games — in the penultimate round to runner-up Eduardo Iturrizaga.

Eduardo Iturrizaga finished second | Photo: dubaichess.ae

David Antón ended in a disappointing 20th place | Photo: dubaichess.ae

Outside of the top echelons, the field was dominated by players from India who counted fully 73 of the 164 players among their ranks. It's just a few hours by air from Mumbai, but this kind of deep bench of talent could be a harbinger of an Indian GM explosion. To wit, IM Tania Sachdev at 2407 Elo was number 21 on the Indian roster! 

Improve your Tactics

The aim of this course is to help you understand how to make tactical opportunities arise as well as to sharpen your tactical vision - these selected lectures will help to foster your overall tactical understanding.

Dubai Open

A post shared by taniasachdev (@taniasachdev) on Apr 10, 2018 at 9:36pm PDT

Indian players won three of the four rating category prizes (under 2300, under 2200 and Under 2000)

The prize for the best Dubai player went to IM Ibrahim Sultan, who got off to a strong start by drawing with Flores in the first round. IM Omar Noaman was the best UAE player and GM Amin Bassem won the Best Arab prize. Iranian star IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh took the prize for the top performance by a woman. 

All available games

Final standings (top 30)

Links

• Official site
• Full results (Chess-Results)