Qatar 2015 Rd6: Carlsen leads, with thirteen following

12/26/2015 – The results at the top boards in the sixth round at the Qatar Masters did not live up the excitement of earlier rounds, with only Giri’s cliffhanger game with Ganguly causing heartburn for chess fans. However, if action was lacking on the very top boards, with so many strong GMs, there were plenty of entertaining games to be found. Express report.

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Qatar Masters 2015 – Round six express report

Video impressions from the free day and round six by Vijay Kumar

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Round six express

By Nisha Mohota and Albert Silver

The top board game between So Wesley and Magnus Carlsen started with 1.e4 e5 and to the delight of the fans, it was not a Berlin! A complicated Ruy Lopez middlegame arose that ended in a draw after 39 moves. Kramnik, true to his style, decided to stay solid against the most adventurous player of the tournament, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. The peace treaty was signed after 30 moves.

Of the top boards, the one game that truly entertained from end to end was the encounter between Anand’s former second Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Anish Giri. The sharp Sicilian Najdorf with its many complications and kings on two different sides of the board kept the fans guessing about the outcome. Once the smoke had settled, Ganguly’s attack had been diffused and Giri was a pawn up and poised to win. However, a dramatic Houdini act by Ganguly allowed him to somehow escape his fate, and they drew after 65 moves.

An example of another dramatic result was 17-year-old IM Vignesh (2422 FIDE) whose victories over Bartel Mateusz (2620) and Wei Yi (2730) rocketed him to the upper echelons of the standings. He had a chance to further his glory as he achieved a completely winning position against Chinese star GM Hou Yifan, but it was not to be and she escaped with a draw, leaving him with only a 2789 performance.

Wei Yi - Stefan Bromberger

The Chinese sensation GM Wei Yi showed his class today! He sacrificed his queen
against Stefan Bromberger with 22.Re6! and after 22...Rxd1+ 23.Kxd1,
left the German completely paralyzed due to the mate threat, and squeezed him to death.

Dmitry Jakovenko - Viktor Bologan

It’s not often that one gets to mate a strong GM! Jakovenko-Bologan started as an interesting Slav game
where, in a difficult position, the latter blundered into a checkmate by playing 27...Rxd5?? here.
Jakovenko must have enjoyed mating his strong opponent by 28.Re8 mate!

Carlsen leads with 5.0/6 and is followed by a pack of thirteen players on 4.5/6.

Replay games of round six

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Top pairings for Round 6 (26.12.2015 at 15:00 local time)

Bo. No. Name Rtg Pts. Res. Pts. Name Rtg No.
1 4 So Wesley 2775 4 ½-½ 4½ Carlsen Magnus 2834 1
2 2 Kramnik Vladimir 2796 4 ½-½ 4 Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2748 7
3 30 Ganguly Surya Shekhar 2648 4 ½-½ 4 Giri Anish 2784 3
4 34 Swiercz Dariusz 2646 4 ½-½ 4 Karjakin Sergey 2766 5
5 6 Li Chao B 2750 3½ ½-½ 4 Yu Yangyi 2736 11
6 24 Fedoseev Vladimir 2664 3½ 0-1 3½ Harikrishna P. 2743 9
7 10 Jakovenko Dmitry 2737 3½ 1-0 3½ Bologan Viktor 2654 27
8 36 Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 2642 3½ ½-½ 3½ Vitiugov Nikita 2724 13
9 14 Wojtaszek Radoslaw 2723 3½ 0-1 3½ Sjugirov Sanan 2646 33
10 62 Al-Sayed Mohammed 2520 3½ 0-1 3½ Ponomariov Ruslan 2710 17
11 18 Ni Hua 2693 3½ 1-0 3½ Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 2644 35
12 52 Tregubov Pavel V. 2589 3½ ½-½ 3½ Matlakov Maxim 2684 21
13 22 Hou Yifan 2683 3½ ½-½ 3½ Vignesh N R 2422 102
14 43 Salem A.R. Saleh 2622 3½ 0-1 3 Korobov Anton 2713 15
15 8 Tomashevsky Evgeny 2744 3 ½-½ 3 Lu Shanglei 2618 47
16 16 Ivanchuk Vassily 2710 3 1-0 3 Esen Baris 2562 53
17 44 Bartel Mateusz 2620 3 ½-½ 3 Howell David W L 2688 20
18 48 Hamdouchi Hicham 2597 3 ½-½ 3 Duda Jan-Krzysztof 2663 25
19 26 Dubov Daniil 2655 3 0-1 3 Lin Chen 2532 57
20 28 Khismatullin Denis 2654 3 ½-½ 3 Xu Jun 2526 59
21 63 Harika Dronavalli 2513 3 0-1 3 Akopian Vladimir 2648 29
22 56 Kosteniuk Alexandra 2542 3 0-1 3 Khairullin Ildar 2647 31
23 66 Yuffa Daniil 2504 3 1-0 3 Sethuraman S.P. 2639 37
24 38 Sasikiran Krishnan 2638 3 1-0 3 Gagare Shardul 2470 78
25 79 Xu Yinglun 2470 3 1-0 3 Piorun Kacper 2637 39
26 40 Grandelius Nils 2632 3 1-0 3 Wang Yiye 2438 92
27 124 Raja Harshit 2325 3 0-1 3 Naroditsky Daniel 2628 41
28 42 Lenderman Aleksandr 2626 3 ½-½ 3 Pham Le Thao Nguyen 2319 126
29 12 Wei Yi 2730 2½ 1-0 2½ Bromberger Stefan 2521 60

Schedule for Playchess Commentary

Day Round Time English German
Sat 26 December  Round 6 3 PM Mihail Marin Thomas Luther
Sun 27 December  Round 7 3 PM Simon Williams Sebastian Siebrecht
Mon 28 December  Round 8 3 PM Daniel King Sebastian Siebrecht
Tue 29 December  Round 9 12 PM Yasser Seirawan Sebastian Siebrecht

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