Asian Continental: Event opens with early upsets

Asian Continental Championship, 2018

The Asian Continental Chess Championship went underway on Monday in Makati City, Philippines. The nine-round Swiss is a qualifier to the 2019 Chess World Cup -- the top five finishers will book their seat into the Candidates qualifier. Besides, there is a prize fund of $50,000 ($35000 for the Open and $15000 for the Women's leg) to play for. Rate of play is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by another 30 minutes for the rest of the game with a 30-second increment from move 1.

Since the tournament serves as a World Cup qualifier, the field is naturally very strong, with four grandmasters rated above 2700 in the fray. Chinese GM Wang Hao (2730) is the top seed followed by Wei Yi (2728) and Le Quang Liem (2714). The Indian charge is led by GM Vidit Gujrathi (2701), who is the fourth seed at the event. Other members from the contingent include Adhiban Baskaran (2695), SP Sethuraman (2664), Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2621), Abhimanyu Puranik (2544), Lalith Babu MR (2529), Shardul Gagare (2504) and Abhijit Kunte (2469). In the women's group, India will be represented by Padmini Rout (2345), Nandhidhaa PV (2267) and Aashna Makhija (2181).

Tough day for the top seeds

The inaugural round of the event turned out to be a tough one for some of the top players. While Wang Hao and Vidit Gujrathi were held to draws, the third seed of the tournament, Le Quang Liem suffered a shocking loss against local IM Paulo Bersamina (2444). For the rest of the Indian squad, the round went rather well as all the other Indian GMs pulled out wins.

On the top board, Wang Hao opened with a bishop's opening and tried to get an attack going on the kingside. The almost symmetrical pawn structure, however, did not provide much in terms of an advantage and his opponent, FM Taher Yoseph Theolifus (2454), had no problems holding ground. 

For the top rated Indian, GM Vidit Gujrathi, the situation wasn't any better. He had sacrificed a pawn from the black side of a Gruenfeld Defence in his game against Haridas Pascua (2442) but after the Filipino IM returned his extra pawn, it was Vidit who had to be careful not to lose the game.

If the white knight is allowed to reach g5, mate would be unavertable. Vidit, therefore, rightly sacrificed the exchange here with 29...Rxe5. There followed 30.Nxe5 Qxe5 31.Rd4 Qc7 and 32.Rcd1, after which, white remained an exchange ahead.

Vidit immediately tried to repeat the position with 32...Nb2 33.Rd2 Nc4 and, surprisingly, Pascua chose not to push on and acceded to the repetition.

While the first and the fourth seeds struggled to win their games, GM Le Quang Liem, the third-seeded player in the tournament, suffered a catastrophic loss to IM Paulo Bersamina. Bersamina had the black pieces in the game and chose to castle his king long in an Italian Opening game. As players tried to break through to each other's king, the following position was reached.

Le had just brought his rook to the seventh rank -- perhaps, assuming that this was the knock out punch. And black would have been a dead duck had he tried protecting his queen. But Bersamina found the stunning counter-punch 34...h3!! Now, after 35.Rxc7 hxg2 36.Nh2, Black found 36...Bf3, forcing immediate resignation.

On board 5, Adhiban Baskaran went all guns blazing against GM Darwin Laylo (2438) in a Gruenfeld Defence. As white, Adhiban sacrificed a pawn early in the game and provoked complications. Laylo also played enterprisingly, in response, and even managed to get a better position.

A few exchanges later, by the 30th move, the players had reached an equal endgame by the 30th move. But just when the position seemed innocuous, Laylo rushed with a rook exchange and shed a pawn. This proved to be enough for Adhiban to convert.

Round 1 results (Open)

Round 1 results (Women)

Standings (Open)

Standings (Women)

Round 2 pairings (Open)

Round 2 pairings (Women)