Asian Indoor Individual 01-03: Indians trail

The highest seeds produced more virtuoso performances in Round 3 of the men’s and women’s Standard Individual Chess events at the Ashgabat 2017 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games on Friday morning.

On the men’s side, GM Le Quang Liem (VIE) and GM Lu Shanglei (CHN) have three points, but second seed GM Wang Yue (CHN) could only draw against GM Enamul Hossain (BAN), despite having an extra pawn. So Wang is a half point behind Le and Lu.

GM Sasikiran Krishnan (IND) started his campaign by winning two games and drawing one. He is up against GM Enamul Hossain (BAN) in the fourth round.

Down on board 8, GM Surya Shekar Ganguly (IND), playing black, took advantage of a rigid pawn structure on IM Semetey Tologontegin’s queenside with a series of four consecutive pawn thrusts, f6, e5, e4, and f5. At this point, move 23, Ganguly had an enormous time advantage and duly pressed forward in the center, winning convincingly.

On a critical moment, at move 20:
“Already when I played Qb6 I saw white could play b4 and I could answer with f6. I think he hadn’t wanted to play b4, he had planned probably Re2. But at the last minute he saw that once he got his kinght out and he put a rook on b1 I could play Rxc3. So already at that point it might be too late to avoid black getting a big advantage.” Ganguly commented.

Among the women, the most watched clash was IM Tania Sachdev (IND) with white against IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (IRN).

Tania built up a strong position, Khademalsharieh’s knight on c6 leapt to d4 with a threat to Tania’s queen on e2. Tania was caught unprepared for this, and had to retreat her queen, thereby abandoning attacking ambitions. The game was drawn.

Meanwhile, on board 1, Lei Tingjie (CHN) defeated Zhu Chen (QAT) in a tight battle. Women’s World Champion Tan Zhongyi (CHN) is the only other player with three points, so the two Chinese stars will battle each other in Round 4.

On board 8, IM Vijaylakshmi S (IND) suffered a shock defeat at the hands of WIM Shamima Akter (BAN) in Round 3. With a dismal score of one point, she will be facing WFM Wadima Humaid (UAE) in the next round.

Round 4 on 2017/09/22 at 04.00 PM

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	5	GM	Lu Shanglei	CHN	2628	3		3	GM	Le Quang Liem	VIE	2739	1
2	2	GM	Wang Yue	CHN	2699	2½		2½	GM	Dao Thien Hai	VIE	2463	14
3	3	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	IND	2676	2½		2½	GM	Hossain Enamul	BAN	2432	19
4	4	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	IND	2665	2		2	GM	Mollah Abdullah Al Rakib	BAN	2454	17
5	8	GM	Kazhgaleyev Murtas	KAZ	2570	2		2	IM	Wynn Zaw Htun	MYA	2446	18

Click here for full pairings

Round 4 on 2017/09/22 at 04.00 PM

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	2	GM	Tan Zhongyi	CHN	2509	3		3	GM	Lei Tingjie	CHN	2534	1
2	18	WIM	Shamima Akter	BAN	2136	2½		2½	IM	Abdumalik Zhansaya	KAZ	2428	5
3	10	WGM	Aulia Medina Warda	INA	2375	2½		2½	WGM	Tokhirjonova Gulrukhbegim	UZB	2300	15
4	14	WGM	Frayna Janelle Mae	PHI	2305	2		2	IM	Saduakassova Dinara	KAZ	2444	3
5	4	IM	Khademalsharieh Sarasadat	IRI	2433	2		2	WIM	Nadirjanova Nodira	UZB	2166	17
6	6	GM	Zhu Chen	QAT	2424	2		2	WGM	Geldiyeva Mahri	TKM	2132	19
7	20	WFM	Mendoza Shania Mae	PHI	2066	2		2	WGM	Hoang Thi Bao Tram	VIE	2408	7
8	28		Omurbekova Diana	KGZ	1832	2		2	IM	Sukandar Irine Kharisma	INA	2397	8
9	22		Samaganova Alexandra	KGZ	2036	2		2	IM	Tania Sachdev	IND	2391	9
10	12	WIM	Vo Thi Kim Phung	VIE	2349	2		2	WFM	Antonova Nadezhda	TJK	2024	23
11	16	WIM	Gong Qianyun	SGP	2255	1½		1½	WGM	Hejazipour Mitra	IRI	2345	13
12	34	WFM	Wadima Humaid S H Alkalbani	UAE	1628	1		1	IM	Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman	IND	2358	11