Naidistch and Karthikeyan to face off in the 8th round

Photo Credits: David Llada

IGI Stadium, Delhi (13-Jan.-2018): The top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch rated 2701, began his charge towards the title with a fine over GM Vaibhav Suri, rated 2552 in the sixth round.

GM Murali Karthikeyan, rated 2580, had an equalish position against IM Himal Gusain but managed to squeeze blood out of stone with an outside passer and win. Meanwhile, on the top board, GM Ziaur Rehman decided to settle for a quick draw with GM Deep Sengupta, rated 2586.

Going into the seventh round, Rehman, Karthikeyan, and Naiditsch led the leaderboard.

Rehman had the white pieces in an original Reti-kind of an opening where the queens were traded off early in the middlegame to reach a rook vs. two minor pieces endgame. Naiditsch was obviously pressing but it was more or less equal. Suddenly, for no clear reason, Rehman gave up his e-pawn after which it was the end for the Bangladeshi GM.

Double National Champion Karthikeyan Murali also had an equal position with the black pieces out of a Kings Indian Defence opening against Vietnamese GM Tran Tuan Minh, rated 2547. Karthikeyan, too, ended up with rook vs. two minor pieces, being Tran with his double knights and Karthikeyan with a knight and bishop. The other big difference was that White had 4 pawns on the kingside against Karthikeyan’s three, while, Karthikeyan had two pawns on the queenside against Tran’s one.

This classic ‘queenside pawn majority’ was exploited well by the Indian who pushed them forward while the Vietnamese wasted his time with king moves giving Karthikeyan a winning advantage. The Indian grandmaster won without much ado.

Going into the eighth round, the top seed Naiditsch, the only 2700 player of the tournament, and Karthikeyan Murali, the Indian champion of 2015 and 2016, will play each other. and most likely go for blood as they try to find the winner of the tournament.

The C-category with a massive 1257 players got underway here today. The players fight for a total prize money of Rs. 25 lakhs.

Pairings/Results

Round 8 on 2018/01/14 at 10:00 hrs

Bo.	No.			Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg		No.
1	1		GM	Naiditsch Arkadij	2701	6½		6½	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2580		8
2	24		GM	Deviatkin Andrei	2471	5½		5½	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2636		2
3	5		GM	Rozum Ivan	2595	5½		5½	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2472		23
4	26		IM	Vignesh N R	2470	5½		5½	GM	Sengupta Deep	2586		6
5	7		GM	Tiviakov Sergei	2584	5½		5½	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2451		30
6	12		GM	David Alberto	2553	5½		5½	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2434		32
7	13		GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2550	5½		5½		Akash Pc Iyer	2415		35
8	16		GM	Vaibhav Suri	2542	5½		5½	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2380		42
9	71			Koustav Chatterjee	2288	5½		5½	GM	Pruijssers Roeland	2536		18
10	3		GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2610	5		5	IM	Hemant Sharma (Del)	2348		48