Chess - General Thread

[prashanthm]

World Jr CH - 2013

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi drew the last round with the eventual champion and top seed Yu Yangyi to bag the BRONZE medal in the open section with a score of 9.5/13..
S P Sethuraman lost his last round game to Jorge Cori and finished 5th with 9.0/13... Had SP won his game, he would have finished with the Bronze medal, while Vidit would have been 4th....

In the Girls section, Padmini Raut drew her last round game with Abdumalik, the eventual silver medalist with 9.5/13, to finish 8th (joint 5th on points) with 8.5/13... Had Padmini won her game, she would have bagged the BRONZE medal.....


FINAL STANDINGS (Indians)

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Boys

3	GM	VIDIT SANTOSH GUJRATHI	2565	9½
5	GM	SETHURAMAN S.P.	2553	9
12	IM	DEBASHIS DAS	2489	8½
23	GM	GROVER SAHAJ	2479	7½
29	IM	NARAYANAN SRINATH	2483	7½
31		SUNILDUTH LYNA NARAYANAN	2408	7½
67		KULKARNI RAKESH	2283	6½
106		KATHMALE SAMEER	2339	4½

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Girls

8	WGM	PADMINI ROUT	2312	8½
24	WIM	IVANA MARIA FURTADO	2134	7½
27	WFM	MONNISHA GK	2094	7
35	WFM	SAVANT RIYA	1960	7
43	WFM	SARANYA J	2094	6½
45	WFM	PUJARI RUCHA	2154	6
50		ANJANA KRISHNA S	1881	6
56		SHRISTI J. SHETTY	1909	5½

The exciting young Chinese prospect Wei Yi finished joint 5th with 9.0/13...

[ajay]

Koneru and Harika are currently playing the Tashkent leg of FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013–14. Koneru scores another victory in 8th round to extend her lead over second placed Harika and Lagno. So far Koneru has 5 victories in 8 games - pretty impressive.

GM Koneru Humpy 2607 1 - 0 GM Zhao Xue 2579
GM Stefanova Antoaneta 2496 ½ - ½ GM Dronavalli Harika 2475

The standings after the 8th round are:

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Rank		      Name	         Rtg	FED	Pts	Victories
1 	GM 	Koneru Humpy      	2607	IND	6.5	5
2 	GM 	Dronavalli Harika 	2475	IND	5.5	3
3 	GM 	Lagno Kateryna    	2532	UKR	5.5	3
4 	IM 	Khotenashvili Bela	2514	GEO	4.5	4
5 	WGM	Ju Wenjun         	2535	CHN	4.5	3
6 	WGM	Girya Olga        	2439	RUS	4.0	3
7 	GM 	Zhao Xue          	2579	CHN	3.5	3
8 	GM 	Stefanova Antoaneta  2496	BUL	3.5	1
9 	WGM	Muminova Nafisa   	2293	UZB	3.0	2
10	GM 	Kosteniuk Alexandra  2495	RUS	3.0	2
11	GM 	Danielian Elina   	2470	ARM	3.0	1
12	WGM	Nakhbayeva Guliskhan 2307	KAZ	1.5	0

This is an important tournament as it is the 3rd part of a series of six chess tournaments exclusively for women to determine the challenger for Women's World Chess Championship 2015. A player is allowed to participate only in 4 out of 6 Grand Prix tournaments. Koneru has already won the second leg at Dilijan, Armenia, where Harika finished only 8th. Both of them did not play the first leg.

[ajay]

Congratulations to Vidit, Sethuraman, Debashis, and Padmini for good performance.

[prashanthm]

In the Tashkent GP, after 5 rounds Humpy and Harika were the join leaders with 4 points each... They drew their game in the 6th round enabling Lahno catch up with them...
After that Humpy went berserk with 2 wins, while Harika drew with Lahno in Rd 7 and another draw in Rd 8 meant that she has to play catch up now...

Humpy is yet to play the bottom player. So, she has the best chance to win this all...... and take a commanding lead in this season's GP series....

This performance also helps her in getting close to Yifan in the rating list... within 2 points now...

[ajay]

Inspite of both Humpy and Harika losing in the ante-penultimate round, the victories in the penultimate round has set them on the top two positions in the Women's FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent 2013 tournament. With last round remaining, mathematically, only Harika has still a chance to tie with Humpy in this tournament, but with all likelihood, Humpy will win this tournament.
The latest standings after 10th round:

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Rank		Name	        Pts
1 	GM 	Koneru Humpy	7.5
2 	GM 	Dronavalli Harika	6.5
3 	IM 	Khotenashvili Bela	6
4 	GM 	Lagno Kateryna	6
5 	GM 	Zhao Xue	5.5
6 	WGM	Ju Wenjun	5.5
7 	WGM	Girya Olga	5
8 	GM 	Kosteniuk Alexandra	4.5
9 	GM 	Danielian Elina	4.5
9 	GM 	Stefanova Antoaneta	4.5
11	WGM	Muminova Nafisa	3
12	WGM	Nakhbayeva Guliskhan	1.5

[prashanthm]

Women's FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent 2013

Humpy wins it all and now leads the current GP series...
But her loss to the Georgian in the 9th round and the last round draw meant that she lost a bunch of ELO and is now 9 points adrift of Yifan in the live ratings...

Harika, who was sole 2nd with 6.5 after 10 rounds lost to Zhao Xue and ended up at 5th..... Her 9th round loss to Kosteniuk didn't help either......

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1	GM	Koneru Humpy	2607	IND	8
2	IM	Khotenashvili Bela	2514	GEO	7
3	GM	Lagno Kateryna	2532	UKR	7
4	GM	Zhao Xue	2579	CHN	6.5
5	GM	Dronavalli Harika	2475	IND	6.5
6	WGM	Ju Wenjun	2535	CHN	6
7	WGM	Girya Olga	2439	RUS	5.5
8	GM	Kosteniuk Alexandra	2495	RUS	5.5
9	GM	Danielian Elina	2470	ARM	5
10	GM	Stefanova Antoaneta	2496	BUL	4.5
11	WGM	Muminova Nafisa	2293	UZB	3
12	WGM	Nakhbayeva Guliskhan	2307	KAZ	1.5

[suresh]

Humpy seems to have stagnated over the past couple of years. Her rating is in the low 2600s and I would have like to see her at 2650+. With her mental toughness, she is capable of a lot more than being one of the top women players.

[PKBasu]

Here is the latest list of the world's top-100 players:

http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

Anand has slipped to 9th. But there is an interesting name there, 19-year-old Anish Giri, who is ranked #20 and is the best under-20 player in the world. I'm surprised nobody has noticed this NRI or PIO yet. In all, there are 4 Indians (apart from Giri) in the top-100. The others are #42 P Harikrishna, #77 Parimarjan Negi and #83 Krishnan Sasikaran.

[suresh]

Anish Giri helped Anand out during his 2010 world championship match against Topalav (so did Carlsen and Kasparov). So he is not totally unknown.

[Varma]

...I'm surprised nobody has noticed this NRI or PIO yet....

I remember him being discussed in this forum briefly. I think he is of Nepalese descent, not Indian.

- Varma

[prasen9]

Giri is a prodigy. He has a Nepalese father and Russian mother and was born in Russia. He has lived in Japan for a long time and now is in Netherlands, I believe. I have been following his exploits sporadically for the last 2-3 years. Hopefully he can dethrone Carlsen. He had helped Anand during his WC run against Gelfand.

[RohitG]

@Prasen9, Totally agree! Anish is younger (by 4 years) to Carlsen.. There's a youtube vid where Giri defeated Carlsen in 22 moves. Although one can't derive much from a match, he's quite capable and I want to see it happening. Perhaps Anand will help Giri in the future and defeat Magnus and say, "Now you know what it feels like"

[ajay]

A simple search in this forum would show that we discovered Anish Giri almost 5 yrs back (Jan 2009) when he was just 14 and came to the limelight as a youngest GM at that time. I remember reading his analysis for previous world championship games. He has already earned respect from the top players and he is considered a bright prospect. Yes, it would be great to see Giri challenging Carlsen soon.

[ajay]

London Chess Classic Rapid 2013

Anand is playing his first tournament after the world championship. In first four games, he scored 3 victories and a draw. Here are the match reports for 3rd and 4th round.

Istratescu 0-1 Anand: more misery for the genial French GM, playing a genius Indian world champion. Andrei tried to attack the black king but Vishy flashed out the amazing 21...Nxe5, exploiting the weak situation of the white bishop on c2. It wasn’t quite the end of the story as Vishy had to give up the exchange but he gained two pawns by way of compensation. The game was finally by Andrei’s blunder 49.Rb1 which opened the door to a winning attack.

Anand 1-0 McShane: Vishy is really enjoying life now he no longer has to sit opposite a certain Norwegian player. This was like the teenage Vishy, going all-in with a speculative piece sacrifice. It’s always good to have the initiative at rapid chess, and Luke was faced with a major defensive problem. Your computer will suggest a range of reasonable solutions, but Luke didn’t have time to sort them out and he soon came unstuck. Vishy is now almost certain of qualification, while Luke is four points adrift of Mickey and unlikely to go forward.

[prasen9]

This is sort of expected. Anand is now free of the pressure of defending his title. So, he is possibly bringing in all the preparations he was saving for the match or at least some of them and using them now. Of course, this is a conjecture, but, seems like that is what is happening.