Top seed Naiditsch wins Delhi Open
NEW DELHI: Top seed M Arkadij Naiditsch settled for a draw against Italian GM David Alberto in the 10th and final round but it was enough for the GM from Azerbaijan to win the Delhi GM Open 2018 chess title.
Naiditsch offered a draw after 18 moves with white pieces in a Caro-kann exchange variation. With 8.5 points out of 10, Naiditsch finished on top by half a point over the rest of the field. Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman managed to draw with Indian GM Karthikeyan Murali with the black pieces.
The game began on a Sicilian Defence where both the players were on their toes, move for move. In the end, the players settled for a draw in a rook endgame. Ziaur finished on 8 points and was tied for the second place.
IM Md Nubairshah Shaikh played with black against IM Vignesh NR and the game was a Caro Kann Defence. Vignesh played by risking his position and had to pay the price as Nubair found all the right moves to scoop up two pawns for free. Nubair also finished with 8 points for a tied second place. Earlier, Nubair had already completed his first GM norm in the ninth round. Hungarian GM Adam Horvath finished with four consecutive wins to also finish with eight points.
In the final round, he managed to defeat Akash PC Iyer who had earlier scored a GM norm.
Rahman, Nubairshah, and Horvath finished tied for the second position.
ANAND IN JOINT LEAD
WIJK AAN ZEE: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand crushed USA’S Fabiano Caruana in the third round to join Dutchman Anish Giri in lead on 2.5 points at the Tata Steel Masters Chess tournament here.
For Anand, it was his second victory in three days as he looks for a record sixth title here.
Caruana went for the Petroff defense, an opening he had used in round one also. Anand went for a topical variation full of com- plexities and it was in the early middle game that Caruana reacted strongly on the 16th move. “I was very surprised,” Anand said in the post-game chat adding, “I thought it didn’t call for such extreme measures.”
In the moves that followed, Caruana gave up two minor pieces for a rook and a pawn and even though the position remained a bit unclear, the American clearly did not like what was happening.
It was on the 28th move that Caruana shut his remaining chances. A pawn capture led to a lost position. “Something went wrong in his calculation, he went down a very forced line and his calculation just missed the mark,” Anand said.
As it happened in the game, a queen sacrifice on the 42nd move sealed the fate of the game. After finishing third in the previous edition, B Adhiban suffered his second defeat in as many days going down to Gawain Jones of England. With 10 rounds left, top rated Magnus Carlsen, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan and Jones share the third spot with two points apiece.