Sharjah Masters 2017

[Tim Harding]

Gawain Jones is 10th seed in the Sharjah Masters (open) just started this afternoon. He is playing the Scotch against a WGM from Kazakhstan, Abdumalik, Zhansaya.
Top nine seeds are: Wojtaszek, Kryvoruchko, Matlakov, Naiditsch, Wang Hao, Adhiban, Arishchenko, Safarli, and Anton Guijarra.
Also 11-year-old Praggnanandhaa still trying to get those GM norms to beat Karjakin's record.
229 players of whom nearly 100 are below 2200.

LATER: Gawain won and should be on board 5 tomorrow.
Five of the higher seeds only drew, including Naiditsch who could not win with White against Praggnanandhaa: a good start for the young Indian.

[Mick Norris]

Gawain black on board 4 v IM Narayanan (2474)

Wojtaszek drew, Matlakov lost

[Tim Harding]

Gawain black on board 4 v IM Narayanan (2474)

Wojtaszek drew, Matlakov lost

Sorry about the mistake re Matlakov. I think maybe chess24 was displaying the wrong result when I looked at the list.

Today Praggnanandhaa has White on board 22 against 8th seed Safarli; could be worth watching. I am looking forward to seeing the young Indian in action at Reykjavik next month (but not playing him I expect).

[Mick Norris]

Gawain won

Kryvoruchko drew on top board

[Tim Harding]

Most of the higher boards apart from Kryvoruchko's seem to have been decisive in favour of the higher-rated player, but Lalith Babu lost to a compatriot rated 200 points below him, and Fier was also beaten.

Twelve players have 2/2 and Gawain is number 3 by seeding, so White against Alan Pichot of Argentina looks likely, unless there is some acceleration of pairings affecting the top group.

Praggnanandhaa drew with Safarli so the Indian kid has 50% against opponents averaging 2691 which is a handy start for someone seeking a GM norm.

[Chris Rice]

Round 1 ChessBase report on this event. Notable is that 230 players entered and 40 failed to show up for the first round. On the top 15 boards, there were 8 draws and 4 walkovers. To add to what Tim has said above Uzbek IM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, the 12-year-old wunderkind Leonard Barden has previously reported on, held Vladimir Akopian (2675). Also another 12 year old prodigy, Nihal Sarin beat GM Bluebaum.

We also have a Chess.com Report on Rounds 1&2 which seems to report a bit of a day one shambles by the organisers.

"For starters, the participants were brought to the playing hall (a five-minute ride from the hotel where most players are staying) two hours before the start of the round, but there was no opening ceremony so everyone just had to wait...for two hours. Then, shortly before the games started, the arbiter suddenly announced a change of the time control (now one hour and 40 minutes for the whole game, plus 30 seconds increment). The starting time of the rounds was also changed, from 5:30 pm to 4:30 pm. And, also at the last minute it was announced that accelerated pairings would be used. More important, things went wrong with the list of participants. Somehow, a large number of players had ended up on the list at Chess-Results, and before the start of the first round nobody really knew who had travelled to Sharjah, and who had made other plans. As a result, the first round saw no fewer than 39 "no-shows" (bit of a discrepancy with the above report) with their opponents getting a free point after one hour of waiting. These included boards two and three, and eight among the top 26."

However, this is followed by "Do the players complain? Hardly. The reason is that the tournament is providing conditions that are well above the average."

Round 3 pairings are also on the report and as Tim rightly forecasted Gawain is White against Pichot.

[Roger de Coverly]

Somehow, a large number of players had ended up on the list at Chess-Results, and before the start of the first round nobody really knew who had travelled to Sharjah, and who had made other plans.

This is a problem that also afflicted the Millionaire Event in the USA. If FIDE aren't willing to allow the British domestic system of re-pairing, surely organisers should follow the European practice of having players register an hour or two before the first round?

[Chris Rice]

Further report from Chess.com which features an absolute horror of a reversal in a Salem Saleh game "“As cold showers go, this one is liquid hydrogen” and in the game Anton- Abdusattorov Black played 35...fxe3 to set up quadrupled pawns, which is the first time I've ever seen that outside a study.

[Ian Thompson]

We also have a Chess.com Report on Rounds 1&2 which seems to report a bit of a day one shambles by the organisers.

"... the first round saw no fewer than 39 "no-shows" (bit of a discrepancy with the above report) with their opponents getting a free point after one hour of waiting. These included boards two and three, and eight among the top 26."

I noticed a comment elsewhere that top players might not be very pleased at getting a bye in Round 1 because it would adversely affect their tie-break score, and all prizes are subject to tie-break instead of being shared.

It seems to me that the players are likely to benefit from having had a bye because they'll be treated as having played themselves for Buchholz tie-break purposes. Even with accelerated pairing being used, that's likely to give then a better score than if they'd played and beaten someone in Round 1.

[Paul Dargan]

typical tiebreaks in the middle east are average rating of opponents cut 1, or cut 2 ... I'd imagine that a bye counts as your lowest rated opponent - but if it doesn;t count thne it obviously helps not having your round 1 opponent in them mix

[Chris Rice]

Nice win for Gawain to move him to 3/3. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 2017/3/1/3

[Matt Mackenzie]

Further report from Chess.com which features an absolute horror of a reversal in a Salem Saleh game "“As cold showers go, this one is liquid hydrogen” and in the game Anton- Abdusattorov Black played 35...fxe3 to set up quadrupled pawns, which is the first time I've ever seen that outside a study.

There have been a few previous occurrences, including a fairly famous game from Alekhine's youth (he "enjoyed" the QPs and lost)

[Tim Harding]

Nice win for Gawain to move him to 3/3. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 2017/3/1/3

Top six all won so Gawain is likely to have Black against Kravtsiv tomorrow.
I was out at the critical moment but Gawain's game seems to have been horribly complicated. The online engine is saying he should have played 19 Nxh8 Rxh8 20 Bxc5 because after his 19 Qc4 Black might have played 19...Rxd4 followed by 20...Qh3 with 0.00 but this would need checking with an offline engine.

After Salem's round 1 horror-show he was probably not best pleased to be paired with Praggnanandhaa today, while the young Indian missed by only one board the treat of having his famous victim Bluebaum again.
Praggnanandhaa drew in 101 moves. So he is now on 1.5/3 against average 2678.

Does anyone know if he has any GM norms yet?

[Leonard Barden]

Praggnanandhaa drew in 101 moves. So he is now on 1.5/3 against average 2678.

Does anyone know if he has any GM norms yet?

He's been nowhere near a GM norm yet, low to middle 2500 TPRs is as far as he has reached till now. Lucky to escape with half a point today against Salem Saleh. He still almost has a full year to acquire the three 2600+ norms and the 2500 rating needed to break Karjakin's world record.

Uzbekistan's Nodirbek Abdusattorov has the youngest ever 2600+ GM norm from St Petersburg in October 2016, but he hasn't performed to that level either at Moscow Aeroflot or in Sharjah, and time is running out as he needs two more norms and the rating by July to break Karjakin's record.

Germany's Vincent Keymer has the youngest ever IM norm at 10 years 3 months but hasn't played all that much lately, so is probably giving preference to his career as a talented musician.

Iran's Alireza Firoudja is the other super-prodigy, national champion at 12 and the youngest 2700 performance in chess history, 2746, when scoring 6/9 at Moscow Aeroflot 2017. However immediately after this he did rather badly in the 2017 Iran championship, and this may have come too soon after Aeroflot.

[Mick Norris]

Round 4
Bo. No. Name FED Rtg Pts. Result Pts. Name FED Rtg No.
1 5 GM Wang Hao CHN 2683 3 3 FM Sadhwani Raunak IND 2218 134
2 135 WGM Safranska Anda FRA 2217 3 3 GM Adhiban B. IND 2682 6
3 138 CM Aditya Mittal IND 2183 3 3 GM Jones Gawain C B ENG 2676 10
4 153 CM Mendonca Leon Luke IND 2110 3 3 GM Fressinet Laurent FRA 2662 16
5 20 GM Oleksiyenko Mykhaylo UKR 2643 3 3 WFM Srija Seshadri IND 2166 142
6 21 GM Kravtsiv Martyn UKR 2641 3 3 WFM Cholleti Sahajasri IND 2120 152
7 11 GM Akopian Vladimir ARM 2675 2½ 3 Al Yaghshi M. Hisham SYR 2056 16