Salem Saleh wins Asian Continental 2015

Salem Saleh wins Asian Continental 2015

It is the world’s largest and most populous continent. Chess-wise it is the fastest growing one with a five time ex-world champion at the helm and a 16-year-old lad becoming the youngest 2700 in the history of the game. Yes, we are talking about Asia and the most important Asian event – the Asian Continental Championships 2015 were held from the 2nd to the 10th of August 2015 in Al Ain, UAE. Five qualifications spots from the open section for World Cup 2015 and one for the women for World Cup 2016 were at stake along with a total of US $75,000 (50,000 for open and 25,000 for women) in prize money.

The open event was extremely strong with a rating average of 2377. 36 grandmasters and players from 28 countries participated in this event. The top seed was the Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem. The women section had 57 participants with an average rating of 2142. There were nine IMs and 14 WGMs and the top seed was WGM Tan Zhongyi (2512) from China.

The current article will focus on the open tournament with part two covering the women’s event.

Performing on your home turf is often quite difficult. There are hopes of the people, and the media tends to give you extra attention – especially if you are the only grandmaster that your country has ever produced. All this did not affect GM Salem Saleh as he went on to confidently claim the title with a score of 7.0/9.

On the podium: Salem Saleh (gold), Surya Shekhar Ganguly (silver) and S. P. Sethuraman (bronze)

Salem had quite a slow start. After draw in the second round to Xu Yinglun and a loss to Lin Chen in the fourth, it seemed as if he was out of the gold medal contention with a score of 2.5/4. But then he picked up pace and scored four wins in a row – two of them against 2600+ players Sethuraman and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. A last round agreed draw against Vidit Gujarathi was good enough for him to seal first place based on a better tie-break (most number of wins).

Determination and fighting spirit were the qualities that helped Salem Saleh
become the first Asian Champion from his country

The official website of the Asian Continental published a small interview with Salem after he won the event, which we reproduce here:

Salem, congratulations on winning the Asian Continental Championship 2015! How do you feel?

Salem: It was a very tough tournament. Actually, I was not hoping that I will win. Regardless, now I am really happy.

You have won a Continental Championship which was organized in your own country! I believe you are feeling great?

Yes. Actually Al-Ain is a very good place for me. I have very nice memories. I won a tournament here in 2007 – Asian Championships U-14. In 2014, I won the rapid tournament. I like to play here.

The 2014 Al Ain Rapid champion

Is this your first adult Continental Championship that you have won?

Yes, this is the first one. I finished sixth in Asian Continental Championship 2014 and third in 2013. I have already qualified for the World Cup. This means I have sealed qualification to the World Cup twice. This is the first time I am winning the Asian Continental Championship!

Congratulations once again. You made a quick draw in the last round. Did you anticipate that you need just a draw to become a champion?

Yes, actually, my coach told me yesterday about the situation. It was obvious that I would need only a draw to get the gold medal. So, I decided not to take any risk. I played so many games in this event, and if a draw is enough, I took a correct decision. Even if Ganguly or Gupta would win, I would still be ahead on tiebreak. First definition is by direct encounters and second is by greater number of wins. I have won more games than them.

Your next tournament is the World Cup, I believe, right?

No, I will participate in the Abu Dhabi Masters now, and after that I will play in the World Cup. Actually I had already qualified for the World Cup before this Asian Continental Championship.

Meaning your plans will not change to thoroughly prepare for the World Cup?

No, I will follow my original plan. I had a big break before the Asian Continental Championship. I have been working enough, now I want to play.

How will you prepare for the World Cup?

By playing the Abu Dhabi Masters. We will know the pairings soon and with the help of my coach Ivan Sokolov we will make preparations according to who I will play.

Salem has a tough first round opponent in the form of Wei Yi

We know that during the Asian Championships you got help not only from your coach Sokolov. It’s not a secret to share with us who else was helping you?

Yes, I have been working with GM Alexey Dreev and my coach GM Ivan Sokolov.

Once again congratulations! We are very happy for you. We wish you all the best in future competitions.

Salem also won the Asian Blitz Championships with a score of 7.5/9.
Zhang Zhong (left) finished second and Haridas Pascua (right) was third.

Top final rankings (after nine rounds)

• Full final standings can be found here.

Salem’s has a very aggressive and active style of play. No wonder, there were many little combinations in his games from the tournament. Here we have selected three of them. Try to test yourself and see if you can play as well as the Asian champion.

Nitin,S (2404)-Salem,A (2595), Round 1

It’s sacrifice time! Black to play.

Liu,C (2353)-Salem,A (2595) , Round 5

Black (to play) is a rook down, but he has a nice little trick to finish off the game

Nguyen,N (2662)-Salem,A (2595)

Salem (Black) is completely winning here. He took the bishop on f1 with his queen.
What do you think about the move? Does it win or is it a blunder?

The runner-up of the event Surya Shekhar Ganguly

Ganguly had a great event scoring 7.0/9, the same as the winner, but was relegated to the second spot because of scoring less wins than Salem. He remained unbeaten with a performance of 2734 and adding 14 Elo points to his rating of 2631. Ganguly scored wins over many strong grandmasters (Sharavdorj, Gundavaa, Vakhidov, Darini) and as he has done in many tournaments he finished the event with a last-round victory – this time it was over GM Zhang Zhong. Incidentally: he faces GM Vladislav Artemiev in the first round of the World Cup.

After the tournament Ganguly wrote to us, “The last round game was very important to win, so that’s my favourite. Although I am perfectly aware how badly I played in the opening phase of the game!”

It’s never a good feeling to come under a devastating attack–
Zhang Zhong from Singapore finished 17th with 5.5/9

The reigning Indian national champion, GM S. P. Sethuraman, finished third

Sethuraman has been in great form recently. He was instrumental in the Indian team winning the bronze medal in the Tromso Olympiad 2014. As the 2014 National Champion, he had already qualified for the World Cup 2015. Sanan Sjugirov will be Sethuraman’s first round opponent at the World Cup.

Regular contributor to our website and super-solid GM Vidit Gujrathi (above) scored 6.5/9, remained unbeaten and finished fourth. He crossed 2650 on the rating charts and has qualified for World Cup 2015. He will face Bruzon Batista from Cuba in round one.

GM Zhou Jianchao (above) also was unbeaten in the event. His last round victory against GM Abhijeet Gupta helped him to finish fifth. He faces a stiff challenge in the form of Dmitry Andreikin in round one of the World Cup.

Although there were only five berths for the World Cup, two more players qualified as Salem and Sethuraman had already booked their seat on the basis of Asian Continental 2014 and National Championships 2014 respectively.

The surprise package from the tournament was the 15-year-old IM Parham Maghsoodloo (2416) from Iran. Parham started the tournament pretty normally with 1.5/4. A win against 2100 player in round five was followed by a draw against GM Ghaem Maghami in six. 3.0/6. And then came the three blistering strokes. Parham beat GMs Gopal (2562), Ziaur Rahman (2509) and Sandipan Chanda (2585) to finish with 6.0/9 and not only gain 25 Elo points and a GM norm but also a mini match against Wesley So in the first round of the World Cup 2015! What a dream tournament for the young lad.

GM Lalith Babu from India took the last World Cup spot by finishing seventh. The best quality about Lalith is no matter how badly he starts, he always stages a comeback. The same was the case in Al-Ain. After 3.0/5 and two losses, he drew two and won his last two games to miraculously qualify. He will face Radoslaw Wojtaszek at the World Cup.

Top final standings (after nine rounds)

• Full standings of all 83 players can be found here

GM Lin Chen (above) from China played a beautiful tournament. He not only beat the eventual tournament winner Salem Saleh but also S. P. Sethuraman and Vishnu Prasanna. He also made draws against Vidit, Sasikiran, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Deep Sengupta. His only loss against Abhijeet Gupta proved costly as he missed the qualification by a whisker. But surely he is one of those Chinese players whose name we shall be hearing quite a bit in the near future.

The top seed of the event Le Quang Liem found the going tough.
He remained unbeaten but could score only three wins, finishing twelfth.

Krishnan Sasikiran played a steady event
but in spite of remaining unbeaten could only finish thirteenth.

Second seed Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son was doing quite well with a score of 5.0/7. But two consecutive losses relegated him to the 31st spot! However, he won the Asian Rapid championships.

Winner of the Asian Rapid Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (centre)
with Sandipan Chanda (silver) on the left and Debashis Das (bronze)

Top final ranking (after seven rounds)

• Full final standings can be found here

GM Alexey Kuzmin came to Al Ain as the coach of the Qatar Federation.
Unfortunately Qatar could send only one player to the tournament – Aziz Nezad Husein.

GM Ziaur Rahman holds the distinction of highest rating achieved by a Bangladeshi player (2570)

Iran number one Ehsan Ghaem Maghami recently completed his education in sports
education from the University of Tehran. He already holds the degree of Bachelor of Law.

 International Master from Pakistan: IM Mahmood Lodhi

The playing hall of the tournament

Photographs from the official facebook page

Replay and download a selection of games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Official tournament site