Nigel Short wins Thai Open

by Johannes Fischer
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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Links

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Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".