11th Parsvnath Delhi International Chess Festival 2013

Former World junior champion Abhijeet Gupta starts as the top seed and hot favourite in Delhi International Chess Festival that got under way on Saturday. A record breaking 700+ participants registered for the biggest ever prize money tournament of the country. The premier section has just over 100 participants and is one of the strongest tournaments, with over 50 titled players participating, including some of the best players from India.

The premier section also includes GM Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, Andrey Deviatkin of Russia, Czebe Attila of Hungary, Raset Ziatdinov of United States, Henrik Teske of Germany, Marat Dzhumaev and Dmitry Kayumov of Uzbekistan, which makes the tournament extremely competitive. On the national front we find (behind Abhijeet Gupta) Abhijeet Kunte, B. Adhiban, P. Magesh Chandran and Commonwealth champion M.R. Lalith Babu. The local challenge is spearheaded by GMs Sahaj Grover and Vaibhav Suri apart from Tania Sachdev, who had a very successful stint recently in a tournament where she played against great masters of the past.

The tournament, which was first held twelve years ago, is split into three different sections. The 'A' section has a prize purse is Rs. 1.25 million (= US $22,000 or €16,800). The ‘B’ section, for players rated below 2200 rating, has a prize pool of Rs. 300,000 (€4,200 or US $5,500), while the section ‘C’, reserved for players rated below 1900 Elo rating, has a prize fund of Rs. 600,000 and will start on the 9th of January.

Round seven: Suri beats Chandran, takes sole lead

GM Vaibhav Suri nosed ahead of the field with a brilliant endgame display against higher ranked P. Magesh Chandran in the seventh round of the premier section of 11th Parsvnath International Chess Festival.

Suri’s victory with black was possible after Magesh Chandran went haywire with his plans from what looked like an approximately equal endgame. The Delhi boy (above left) however took the victory as it came with the black pieces and is now in serious contention for the biggest victory of his career.

On what turned out to be an excellent day for players with black pieces, GMs Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus (above left), Marat Dzhumaev from Uzbekistan and M.R. Lalith Babu made merry on the top boards and jumped to joint second spot. With Suri on six points from seven games, the three pursuers are on his heels a half point behind, and the coming rounds promises excitement for the chess buffs.

Two female participants: IM Nisha Mohota, WGM Soumya Swaminathan

A wolf-pack of eight players is on five points. They are Lu Shanglei from China, Niaz Murshed of Bangladesh, Henrik Teske from Germany, Kiril Kuderinov of Kazakhstan, Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and Indians Chandra, Sahaj Grover and Murali Karthikeyan.

Aleksandrov won at the expense of Hungarian GM Czebe Attila in a long drawn endgame. Showing precise technique, Aleksandrov pocketed a pawn and gave no chances thereafter. Swapnil Dhopade was in contention for a long time but missed out on chances to equalize against Dzhumaev. The Uzbek GM won an exchange and showed his technical prowess to clinch the issue.

Lalith Babu had a difficult game to defend against Ankit Rajpara who in fact
blundered and landed in a lost endgame

Murali Karthikeyan (above right) drew against V. Vishnu Prasanna and ...

...kept himself in quest for a GM norm. The 13-year-old will next meet Magesh Chandran.

Top seed Abhijeet Gupta made a recovery of sorts, defeating Anurag Mahamal in a one-sided affair. Gupta took his tally to 4.5 points after the victory.

Video report on round seven by Vijay Kumar

Live stream report by the Delhi Chess Association

Round eight: Aleksandrov, Dzhumaev joint leaders

Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus defeated overnight leader Vaibhav Suri to go into joint lead along Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan after the end of the eighth round. Dzhumaev accounted for Commonwealth champion M.R. Lalith Babu to match Aleksandrov on 6.5 points. The two will clash in the penultimate round.

Aleksandrov (above right) ended the dream run of Suri from the black side of a closed Ruy Lopez. The Delhi boy could not keep pace with his counter-attack when Black’s pieces came hurling at the kingside and the result was a smooth attack and a swift victory for Aleksandrov.

Dzhumaev (above), who recently won the strong Kolkata open, made short work of Lalith Babu in a Caro Kann Defense game. Playing white, Marat went for a less-played system and got a dangerous attack right from the early middle game. An erroneous plan by Lalith Babu resulted in lost position pretty quickly and Dzhumaev clinched the issue in a mere 24 moves.

With Aleksandrov and Dzhumaev in front four players – Henrik Teske of Germany, Kiril Kuderinov of Kazakhstan, Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and Vaibhav Suri share the third spot with six points apiece.
Teske defeated Sahaj Grover from the black side of a Queen Pawn opening. The German GM was worse in the endgame, but ended up swindling his young opponent.

Jahongir Vakhidov (above left) had luck smiling at him when Bangladeshi GM Niaz Murshed forgot to keep track of his clock and lost on time. Kuderinov turned the tables on Lu Shanglei of China after struggling in the middle game.

Murali Karthikeyan (above) kept himself in contention for a grandmaster norm after drawing with P. Magesh Chandran. The Chennai-based 13-year-old took his tally to a very impressive 5.5/8 points and a draw in the next round should be enough to get him his maiden GM norm. Kirill Kuderinov is another player who is in with a chance to make a GM norm.

Amongst other Indians in the fray, Diptayan Ghosh (above left) did well to hold top seed Abhijeet Gupta to a draw. With five points from eight games, Gupta is out of contention.

World Youth Under-12 Girls champion R. Vaishali, rated 2000, has 2.0/8 points

Top rankings after round eight

• Full standings of all 105 players here

Video report by Vijay Kumar

Links Official tournament site All available games in PGN (not in very good condition) Top 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 there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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