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Abu Dhabi 2019 Round 6: Indians cause triple upsets in the sixth round of Abu Dhabi Festival

by Satanick Mukhuty - 08/08/2019

The Indian contingent came out with flying colours in the sixth round of 26th Abu Dhabi Festival 2019 as the fifth, sixth, and seventh seeds of the event were all outclassed by Indians! Karthikeyan Murali beat the strong Ukrainian Grandmaster and the seventh seed of the event Andrei Volokitin in a solid positional style. Aryan Chopra crushed the sixth seeded Vladimir Onischuk's Modern defense in a mere thirty-eight moves. And IM Krishna C.R.G shocked the fifth seed Vladimir Akopian by overpowering his Benoni. Elsewhere, Jobava Baadur continued his brilliant streak as he registered his sixth consecutive victory against Parham Maghsoodloo taking a full point lead with 6.0/6 over the entire field. Four players - Nodirbek Yakubboev, Socko Bartosz, Karthikeyan Murali, and Ni Hua - follow him with 5.0/6 points. 

Karthikeyan's placid positional masterclass!

Karthikeyan Murali is now one of the four players tied to the second place with 5.0/6. He is showing excellent form and it remains to be seen if he can catch up with the leader! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

In round six of the Abu Dhabi Masters 2019, Karthikeyan had the White pieces against the strong Ukrainian GM Andrei Volokitin. The game started off with a Sicilian Najdorf but the Indian adopted a solid positional approach instead of a sharp double-edged one that is popularly characteristic of the opening. Let's begin by looking at the highlights of this game.

 

Karthikeyan Murali - Andrei Volokitin, Round 6

6.Be2 is a more solid way of treating the Najdorf, unlike lines with 6.f3 that notoriously lead to wild double-edged play with opposite side castling.

Black gets in the thematic d6-d5 break on move 18. This however loses a pawn after 19.exd5 e4 but Black's pair of bishops and active pieces offer him sufficient compensation.

How should Black meet the mate threat on g7. In the game 23...Bg5 was played, can you do better? 

In this position Black had to play 25...Bf6 after which a pair of bishops were traded off. 

This liquidation obviously favoured White who was up a pawn!

Next, the exchange of queens simplified matters further.

Not long after White picked up another pawn on the kingside. The game was resigned in just four moves from here.

Aryan Chopra goes Modern hunting!

Aryan Chopra defeated the sixth seed of the event Vladimir Onischuk to climb up to 11th place on the leaderboard. He has 4.5/6 points and with only three rounds to go has very good chances of finishing strongly | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Aryan simply crushed Vladimir Onischuk's Modern defense by seizing copious space early on in the game out of the opening. What came next was just clinical rampage!

 

Aryan Chopra - Vladimir Onischuk, Round 6

Position after 14.bxc3: White already has a decisive advantage with that massively extended pawn center. Next step would be to launch an onslaught with h4-h5 and bring over the a1 rook to the kingside via a rook-lift.


With the g7 bishop gone the dark squares around the black king are all the more weak. White goes about pushing h4-h5 first.

Time to bring over the rook to support the kingside flank attack! 

Position after 26.Ng5: hxg6 is strongly threatened.

White inflicts a further weakness on e6.

The final breakthrough! With the rooks doubled up on the sixth rank it is now game over for Black. Resignation came after only four moves from here.

International Master Krishna C.R.G pulls off an upset!

International Master Krishna C.R.G defeated the fifth seed of the event Vladimir Akopian. This was perhaps the biggest upset of the three as the rating difference between the players was only 13 points shy of 200! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Krishna C.R.G is on 4.0/6. Apart from the fourth round loss against compatriot Vaibhav Suri his performance has been overall solid throughout the event | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Akopian began with a slightly worse structure of the Benoni. The Indian IM played some flawless chess to capitalize on his advantage and snub every counter chances his Armenian could have!

 

Krishna C.R.G - Vladimir Akopian, Round 6

Position after 12...Re8: White already has better space and development. Black's only hope lies in the prospect of counterplay on the queenside. 

20.b4! - an excellent move that puts a total stop on Black's advances on the queenside!

Black played 30...Bd7, instead 30...Qe5 would have been better. Can you guess what White did next?


The final blow in the above position came as 31.e5!, after 31...dxe5 32.d6 Qe6 33.Ne4 Nc5 was strongly threatened and White broke through. 

Jobava's stunning dominance!

Jobava Baadur registered his sixth consecutive victory against Parham Maghsoodloo to take a full point lead over the entire field! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Jobava is having a phenomenal run lately. In the next round he is paired up against the strong Chinese Grandmaster Ni hua

Praggnananddhaa secures third place in the Blitz event!

The Blitz event of the festival was held on the 6th of August. The event was won by Parham Maghsoodloo and India's wunderkid secured an impressive third place.

An overview of Pragg's phenomenal Blitz performance!

His win against Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei in the penultimate round was particularly notable. You can check out the video of this encounter sent to us by Rupali Mullick:

Results of round 6

Bo.No. NameRtgPts. ResultPts. NameRtg No.
126
GMJobava Baadur 25845 1 - 0 GMMaghsoodloo Parham 2656
4
22
GMNi Hua 26684 1 - 04 GMTabatabaei M.Amin 2601
17
314
GMKarthikeyan Murali 26124 1 - 04 GMVolokitin Andrei 2636
7
410
GMSocko Bartosz 26254 1 - 04 GMPetrosyan Manuel 2592
23
528
GMYakubboev Nodirbek 25744 1 - 04 GMIndjic Aleksandar 2617
11
612
GMYilmaz Mustafa 2614 ½ - ½4 GMAleksandrov Aleksej 2571
29
730
GMYuffa Daniil 2571 1 - 0 GMSalem A.R. Saleh 2668
3
836
GMAryan Chopra 2553 1 - 0 GMOnischuk Vladimir 2640
6
938
GMSanal Vahap 2535 0 - 1 GMEsipenko Andrey 2625
9
1044
GMKuybokarov Temur 2511 0 - 1 GMBartel Mateusz 2612
13
1174
FMAssaubayeva Bibisara 2375 0 - 1 GMAravindh Chithambaram Vr. 2607
15
1216
GMZubov Alexander 2607 1 - 0 GMIdani Pouya 2581
27
1318
GMAntipov Mikhail Al. 2599 1 - 0 GMPraggnanandhaa R 2569
32
1420
GMPetrov Nikita 2595 ½ - ½ GMIstratescu Andrei 2561
34
1578
FMRathanvel V S 2367 ½ - ½ GMAbdusattorov Nodirbek 2594
21
1622
GMCan Emre 2593 1 - 0 GMSindarov Javokhir 2507
45
1724
GMVaibhav Suri 2591 1 - 0 GMXu Yi 2531
39
1855
IMMuradli Mahammad 24543 0 - 13 GMKryvoruchko Yuriy 2686
1
1957
IMKrishna C R G 24443 1 - 03 GMAkopian Vladimir 2650
5
208
GMTer-Sahakyan Samvel 26323 1 - 03 IMAditya Mittal 2429
61

Standings after round 6

Rk.SNo NameFEDRtgPts. TB1  TB2  TB3 
126
GMJobava BaadurGEO25846,00,0257520,5
228
GMYakubboev NodirbekUZB25745,00,0258119,0
310
GMSocko BartoszPOL26255,00,0253720,0
414
GMKarthikeyan MuraliIND26125,00,0252920,5
52
GMNi HuaCHN26685,00,0249319,5
64
GMMaghsoodloo ParhamIRI26564,50,0257223,5
729
GMAleksandrov AleksejBLR25714,50,0256923,0
816
GMZubov AlexanderUKR26074,50,0253820,0
930
GMYuffa DaniilRUS25714,50,0253819,5
1013
GMBartel MateuszPOL26124,50,0251923,0
1136
GMAryan ChopraIND25534,50,0251820,5
1218
GMAntipov Mikhail Al.RUS25994,50,0249718,5
139
GMEsipenko AndreyRUS26254,50,0249219,5
1422
GMCan EmreTUR25934,50,0248020,0
1515
GMAravindh Chithambaram Vr.IND26074,50,0247821,0
1624
GMVaibhav SuriIND25914,50,0244119,0
1723
GMPetrosyan ManuelARM25924,00,0257624,0
1811
GMIndjic AleksandarSRB26174,00,0255625,0
1912
GMYilmaz MustafaTUR26144,00,0255223,0
2057
IMKrishna C R GIND24444,00,0254821,5

The seventh round of the event begins at 6:30 p.m. You can follow it live on the official YouTube Channel of Abu Dhabi Chess.