Nigel Short wins Thai Open
4/20/2015 – Nigel Short added another tournament win to his long list of successes. With focused play he won the last round of the Thai Open in Bangkok against Indian IM Diptayan Ghosh with Black to finish with 7.5/9 and win the tournament on tie-break. Second place went to Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, third place to Kamil Dragun from Poland. Both also scored 7.5/9.
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Tournament winner Nigel Short (Photo: Nigel Short's Facebook page)
Nigel Short, born 1. June 1965, currently number 64 in world, played his first British Championship at the age of twelve, and in 1979 he broke Bobby Fischer's record to become the youngest International Master at that time. Short's enormous experience showed in the last round of the Thai Open. After eight rounds number one seed GM Wang Hao from China was leading the field with 7.0/8, followed by five players with 6.5/7 each. Short was one of those and in round nine had to play with Black against Indian IM Diptayan Ghosh. Short reached a complex middlegame in a Nimzo-Indian but instead of seeking complications at any costs to play for a win he kept things under control throughout the game, put continuous pressure on his oppenent to finally convert a positional advantage into a better endgame which he won with precise play.
Wang Hao fared less well. The Chinese Grandmaster had to play with Black against Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly who openend the game with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Qe2 seeming to indicate that he would be happy with a draw. But apparently this threw Wang Hao off balance and he did not seem to be able to decide whether he wanted to play for a win with Black or whether he should settle for a draw. As a consequence he gradually started to drift from a completely equal to a worse position which he lost.
Ganguly and Wang Hao enjoying the pleasures of Thailand (Picture taken from the official tournament site)
Polish GM Kamil Dragun followed a completely different strategy. He had the white pieces against the nominally stronger Francisco Vallejo Pons and attacked right from the start. An approach that paid off.
Final standings
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | RtgI | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | ||
| 1 | 3 |
|
GM | Short Nigel D | ENG | 2678 | 7.5 | 0.0 | 52.0 | 42.25 |
| 2 | 6 |
|
GM | Ganguly Surya Shekhar | IND | 2619 | 7.5 | 0.0 | 51.0 | 42.25 |
| 3 | 7 |
|
GM | Dragun Kamil | POL | 2576 | 7.5 | 0.0 | 47.0 | 39.00 |
| 4 | 1 |
|
GM | Wang Hao | CHN | 2713 | 7.0 | 0.0 | 55.0 | 41.00 |
| 5 | 2 |
|
GM | Vallejo Pons Francisco | ESP | 2696 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 55.5 | 38.00 |
| 6 | 8 |
|
GM | Horvath Jozsef | HUN | 2522 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 55.0 | 37.50 |
| 7 | 15 |
|
GM | Kunte Abhijit | IND | 2477 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 52.5 | 36.50 |
| 8 | 13 |
|
GM | Barbosa Oliver | PHI | 2489 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 52.0 | 35.75 |
| 9 | 10 |
|
IM | Ghosh Diptayan | IND | 2512 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 51.0 | 35.50 |
| 10 | 4 |
|
GM | Gustafsson Jan | GER | 2639 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 51.0 | 34.25 |
| 11 | 16 |
|
GM | Deepan Chakkravarthy J. | IND | 2475 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 50.5 | 33.50 |
| 12 | 17 |
|
IM | Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan | IND | 2464 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 50.0 | 35.50 |
| 13 | 9 |
|
GM | Gomez John Paul | PHI | 2520 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 48.5 | 34.00 |
| 14 | 25 |
|
IM | Himanshu Sharma | IND | 2416 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 33.00 |
| 15 | 14 |
|
IM | Illingworth Max | AUS | 2489 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 32.75 |
| 16 | 21 |
|
IM | Swapnil S. Dhopade | IND | 2446 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 32.75 |
| 17 | 11 |
|
GM | Rasmussen Allan Stig | DEN | 2507 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 31.50 |
| 18 | 22 |
|
IM | Karthikeyan P. | IND | 2443 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 44.5 | 30.25 |
| 19 | 51 |
|
FM | Lorparizangeneh Shahin | IRI | 2319 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 52.5 | 33.25 |
| 20 | 18 |
|
GM | Torre Eugenio | PHI | 2460 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 51.5 | 33.00 |
| 21 | 19 |
|
GM | Schebler Gerhard | GER | 2451 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 51.5 | 32.00 |
| 22 | 34 |
|
IM | Bersamina Paulo | PHI | 2390 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 | 30.50 |
| 23 | 27 |
|
IM | Smirnov Anton | AUS | 2410 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 48.5 | 30.25 |
| 24 | 5 |
|
GM | Socko Bartosz | POL | 2628 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 48.5 | 30.00 |
| 25 | 20 |
|
IM | Sammalvuo Tapani | FIN | 2450 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 29.50 |
| 26 | 58 |
|
Dai Changren | CHN | 2275 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 47.0 | 28.00 | |
| 27 | 29 |
|
Ravi Teja S. | IND | 2405 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 46.5 | 29.50 | |
| 28 | 31 |
|
Krishna C.r.g. | IND | 2402 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 46.0 | 29.00 | |
| 29 | 23 |
|
IM | Beikert Guenther Dr. | GER | 2428 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 44.0 | 27.00 |
| 30 | 35 |
|
GM | Gonzales Jayson | PHI | 2385 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 41.5 | 27.50 |
| 31 | 82 |
|
Ritviz Parab | IND | 2188 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 50.5 | 29.00 | |
| 32 | 64 |
|
Hemant Sharma | IND | 2248 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 49.0 | 26.50 | |
| 33 | 114 |
|
Liu Zhaoqi | CHN | 2053 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 28.00 | |
| 34 | 30 |
|
IM | Ikeda Junta | AUS | 2403 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 47.5 | 26.00 |
| 35 | 85 |
|
WIM | Frayna Janelle Mae | PHI | 2167 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 47.0 | 26.75 |
| 36 | 33 |
|
FM | Juhasz Kristof | HUN | 2393 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 46.0 | 28.00 |
| 37 | 47 |
|
FM | Biag Ivan Gil | PHI | 2328 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 46.0 | 26.75 |
| 38 | 52 |
|
FM | Terekhov Andrey | RUS | 2318 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 45.0 | 26.75 |
| 39 | 88 |
|
Grafil Franz Robert | PHI | 2156 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 45.0 | 24.25 | |
| 40 | 39 |
|
Severino Sander | PHI | 2355 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 44.5 | 25.50 |
...
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