The 17th Dubai Open Chess Tournament is being run from 5th – 16th April 2015 at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club, with players from at least 43 countries competing for the prestigious Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup – nine rounds Swiss, time controls: 90 min + 30 sec per move start from move one. The total prize sum is US $50,000, with the winner receiving $12,000. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top 18 placers, with additional prizes for local and Arab players and for the top women scorers.
Three players lead with a perfect score at the 17th Dubai Open at the end of the fourth round: David Howell, Nils Grandelius and Yuri Solodovnichenko. Top seeds have shown great performances in the initial rounds in almost all the big open events this year. Nakamura started off perfectly at the Gibraltar and so did Mamedyarov in Reykjavik. In Dubai, it is David Howell who is sitting pretty at the top with 4.0/4.
David has been impressive, dispatching strong players like IM Sayantan Das (2439),
Jaan Ehlvest (2547) and Sergey Volkov (2602)
In round three David was paired against GM Jaan Ehlvest and gave a perfect example of how to unsettle one’s opponent using psychological tricks. He repeated twice on two occasions and then changed his move. This was not taken well by his experienced opponent, who then decided not to repeat the position and started playing ambitiously. Within a few moves Ehlvest made the decisive error! Learn from the top seed:
Yuri Solodovnichenko scored a win against his higher
rated opponent Gadir Guseinov to move to 4.0/4
The game between Solodovnichenko and Guseinov was very interesting. Firstly Guseinov employed a highly dubious opening and ended with a worse position right after the first few moves. Later, he fought back and the game was heading towards a draw when he sacrificed a piece unnecessarily to complicate the matters. Yet the position was within the realms of a draw. A final blunder sealed Guseinov’s fate. Here’s the topsy turvy battle:
Gadir Guseinov, expert in Accelerated Dragon opening, had a bad day at the office
The young Swedish talent Nils Grandelius on 4.0/4
Nils has an attacking style of playing the game that is feared by many. In the third round, I got a first-hand experience of his precise calculation and sense of initiative when he beat me in a very fine style. Look how he combines play on all the sides of the board and finishes off the game very accurately.
Nils Grandelius vs Sagar Shah in Round 3: sometimes when you lose and you don’t really know
where you went wrong means that there is something to be learnt from that game!
Incidentally the last time that Nils beat me was in Golden Sands 2013, in the third round, and he went onto win the tournament. Maybe a similar fate awaits him in Dubai! The opening chosen by Nils chose against me in the above game was the very fashionable Double Fianchetto from the black side. The moves go 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 b6!? This opening has been dealt in quite some depth by Georgios Souleidis in the latest issue of ChessBase Magazine.
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| Rk. | SNo | Ti. | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 |
TB3 |
rtg+/- |
| 1 | 1 | GM | Howell David W L | ENG | 2687 | 4.0 | 7588 |
10.5 |
8.6 |
| 2 | 17 | GM | Grandelius Nils | SWE | 2613 | 4.0 | 7370 |
9.5 |
10.8 |
| 3 | 27 | GM | Solodovnichenko Yuri | UKR | 2584 | 4.0 | 7203 |
9.0 |
5.5 |
| 4 | 2 | GM | Fedoseev Vladimir | RUS | 2674 | 3.5 | 7561 |
10.0 |
8.6 |
| 5 | 6 | GM | Zhigalko Sergei | BLR | 2657 | 3.5 | 7515 |
10.5 |
-2.1 |
| 6 | 3 | GM | Kovalenko Igor | LAT | 2665 | 3.5 | 7484 |
11.0 |
3.4 |
| 7 | 11 | GM | Istratescu Andrei | FRA | 2630 | 3.5 | 7463 |
9.5 |
9.7 |
| 8 | 19 | GM | Solak Dragan | TUR | 2602 | 3.5 | 7453 |
10.0 |
7.3 |
| 9 | 16 | GM | Ipatov Alexander | TUR | 2614 | 3.5 | 7340 |
9.5 |
4.5 |
| 10 | 23 | GM | Mchedlishvili Mikheil | GEO | 2595 | 3.5 | 7320 |
9.5 |
4.7 |
| 11 | 25 | GM | Papp Gabor | HUN | 2589 | 3.5 | 7306 |
9.5 |
0.9 |
| 12 | 35 | GM | Shabalov Alexander | USA | 2500 | 3.5 | 7261 |
8.5 |
14.8 |
| 13 | 46 | IM | Pourramezanali Amirreza | IRI | 2433 | 3.0 | 7480 |
9.0 |
10.3 |
| 14 | 7 | GM | Bartel Mateusz | POL | 2642 | 3.0 | 7475 |
9.5 |
2.4 |
| 15 | 20 | GM | Volkov Sergey | RUS | 2602 | 3.0 | 7472 |
11.0 |
-0.5 |
| 16 | 36 | GM | Idani Pouya | IRI | 2499 | 3.0 | 7461 |
9.5 |
2.4 |
| 17 | 18 | GM | Guseinov Gadir | AZE | 2606 | 3.0 | 7403 |
11.5 |
4.0 |
| 18 | 51 | GM | Laxman R.R. | IND | 2409 | 3.0 | 7317 |
9.0 |
4.4 |
| 19 | 10 | GM | Iturrizaga Eduardo | VEN | 2632 | 3.0 | 7286 |
10.0 |
0.8 |
| 20 | 8 | GM | Ivanisevic Ivan | SRB | 2638 | 3.0 | 7229 |
9.0 |
-4.0 |
Saturday, 11th of April has two rounds, and the morning game is especially interesting as two talented youngsters take on each other on the top board.
Winner of 12th edition of Dubai Open, Eduardo Itturizaga is on 3.0/4
Local boy Saeed Ishaq (2200) is on 2.0/4 but has already scored two victories over grandmasters
Turkish players Kubra Ozturk, Alexander Ipatov and Betul Yildiz at the Dubai Open 2015
IM Iva Videnova from Bulgaria is the official coach of Dubai Chess Club
WGM Nino Maisuradze is doing extremely well, already gaining 20 Elo points …
… while her better half Alexander Fier is on 2.5/4
GM Daniele Vocaturo from Italy lost the first round but is now back on track with three wins
The well spaced-out playing hall
Pictures from the official facebook page
Addendum: after round five there are five players in the lead with 4.5 points: David Howell, Vladimir Fedoseev, Nils Grandelius, Andrei Istratescu and Alexander Shabalov – followed by twelve players with 4.0/5. With so many players vying for the first prize of US $12,000, the rest of the tournament promises to be pretty spectacular.
Results and rankings after five rounds
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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ChessBase Magazine 165
