Adam Tukhaev and Hesham Abdelrahman lead the IIFL WEALTH GM Open

by Satanick Mukhuty - 04/01/2020

The IIFL WEALTH International Chess Tournament is taking place from the 30th of December 2019 to 7th of January 2020 at the Cuffe Parade-colaba in Mumbai. The open event this year has attracted more than 150 players from as many as 23 different countries including 25 Grandmasters and 28 International Masters. Abhijeet Gupta, Vaibhav Suri, Abhimanyu Puranik, Sandipan Chanda are some of the big names competing from India; while Aleksej Aleksandrov, Yakubboev Nodirbek, Alexei Fedorov, and Adam Tukhaev are among the prominent foreigners vying for the championship title. Five rounds of the tournament are already over and in this pictorial article we bring you the highlights of the latest happenings.

The EKA IIFL Investment Managers 5th Mumbai International Grandmasters Chess Tournament is a nine-round Swiss event following a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game plus a 30 seconds increment from move 1. The eye-catching prize fund of rupees 17 lakh in the open section this year has attracted several strong players from the country and abroad.

The venue is the World Trade Center in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai which goes perfectly with the high stature of the event | Photo: Supriya Bhat

While the posh and spacious playing hall too is a joy to be in | Photo: Supriya Bhat

The tournament is already halfway through and has found leaders in Adam Tukhaev of Ukraine and Hesham Abdelrahman of Egypt both of whom have scored 4.5/5 points each. Abhijeet Gupta and Vaibhav Suri of India who started off as the first and second seed respectively were both surprisingly held to draws in the opening round itself and therefore they are trailing behind with 4.0/5 each.

Top seeded Abhijeet Gupta couldn't kick off the ideal start as he was held to draws in both rounds one and two of the event. However, the 2611-rated Grandmaster did come around and registered victories in the last three encounters in a row | Photo: Supriya Bhat

Abhijeet pushed very hard in both the first and second round games against his opponents Saurabh Anand and Vatsal Singhania respectively but fell short of cracking their defenses. Particularly in the second round encounter he found a clear winning opportunity against Vatsal, who critically blundered on move 55 in a complex knight ending, but still failed to convert the full point.

Vaibhav Suri too was held to a draw by the 14-year-old talent Pranav V in the very first round. Vaibhav is now on 4.0/5 and will be facing Hesham Abdelrahman, who is one of the leaders, in round six | Photo: Supriya Bhat

Adam Tukhaev is one of the leaders in the event with a score of 4.5/5 points. He registered an emphatic victory in round five against Stanislav Bogdanovich, who was the sole leader in the event after four rounds | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Adam clinched an edge against Bogdanovich early on in the encounter playing the white pieces but took an erroneous decision on move 27 by giving up his queen for a rook and two minor pieces. This brought back the balance in the position but Adam managed to outplay his opponent even from here and won the game.

Hesham Abdelrahman beat Deepan Chakkravarthy of India in the fifth round to join Adam Tukhaev on the lead | Photo: ugra2017.fide.com

Results of round five

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	8	GM	Tukhaev Adam	UKR	2552	3½	1 - 0	4	GM	Bogdanovich Stanislav	UKR	2562	6
2	32	GM	Hesham Abdelrahman	EGY	2416	3½	1 - 0	3½	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	2535	12
3	28	IM	Das Sayantan	IND	2440	3½	½ - ½	3½	GM	Yudin Sergei	RUS	2497	16
4	42	GM	Czebe Attila	HUN	2374	3½	½ - ½	3½	IM	Taher Yoseph Theolifus	INA	2469	19
5	36	IM	Mendonca Leon Luke	IND	2398	3½	½ - ½	3½	GM	Mirzoev Azer	AZE	2457	23
6	13	GM	Stupak Kirill	BLR	2529	3	1 - 0	3½	FM	Pranesh M	IND	2317	59
7	46	IM	Neelash Saha	IND	2356	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2611	1
8	55	IM	Kulkarni Vikramaditya	IND	2328	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2597	2
9	11	IM	Gholami Aryan	IRI	2541	3	½ - ½	3	IM	Muthaiah Al	IND	2363	44
10	18	IM	Nigmatov Ortik	UZB	2474	3	0 - 1	3	IM	Nitin S.	IND	2329	53

Standings after five rounds

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5
1	8	GM	Tukhaev Adam	UKR	2552	4,5	0,0	11,5	13,0	12,00	4
2	32	GM	Hesham Abdelrahman	EGY	2416	4,5	0,0	11,0	13,0	11,75	4
3	19	IM	Taher Yoseph Theolifus	INA	2469	4,0	0,0	14,0	16,5	12,50	3
4	6	GM	Bogdanovich Stanislav	UKR	2562	4,0	0,0	14,0	16,0	11,50	4
5	16	GM	Yudin Sergei	RUS	2497	4,0	0,0	13,0	15,0	11,25	3
	28	IM	Das Sayantan	IND	2440	4,0	0,0	13,0	15,0	11,25	3
7	68	IM	Mohammad Fahad Rahman	BAN	2294	4,0	0,0	12,5	13,5	10,00	4
8	42	GM	Czebe Attila	HUN	2374	4,0	0,0	12,0	14,0	10,25	3
9	2	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2597	4,0	0,0	12,0	13,5	10,75	3
10	36	IM	Mendonca Leon Luke	IND	2398	4,0	0,0	12,0	13,5	9,50	3

Complete results and standings

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