Sharjah Masters 2019 begins with 84 Indians in fray

by Sagar Shah - 23/03/2019

84 Indians are taking part in the Sharjah Masters led by GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly, who recently achieved the gold medal on board three of World Team Championships 2019 with a 2850 performance. Out of the 178 participants, UAE, the host country, has only 23 players while India has 84! We also have in form Abhijeet Gupta, and the talented youngster Nihal Sarin who will be looking to cross 2600 in this event. India's youngest GM D.Gukesh doesn't stop playing chess. After becoming a GM, he played the Delhi GM Open 2019, then the Aeroflot followed by HD Bank and now Sharjah. Can we expect another 2700 performance from him? Some of the other talents on whom we should have our eyes are Raunak Sadhwani, Aditya Mittal, Leon Mendonca, Divya Deshmukh, Bharath Subramaniyam, Pranav Anand, Raahil Mullick and more! The first round began on 22nd of March 2019.

There are so many strong players in Indian chess that the 7-8 norm tournaments that take place home are not enough! That's the reason why be it any top open tournament Aeroflot, HD Bank, Gibraltar or for that matter Sharjah Masters and Dubai Open, you will always see a huge contingent of Indian players. At the Sharjah Masters out of 178 players, 84 are Indians! Even the host country UAE has only 23 participants. Iran has 9 players and Russia has 6. However, if you look carefully you will see that out of the top 20 seeds we have only three Indians. In fact in top 10 seeds we have no Indian player. Surya Sekhar Ganguly is the top Indian player, fresh from his 2850 performance at the World Teams, and he is the 13th seed.

SNo		Name	Rtg	RtgI	FED	1	Pts.	Rk.	K	rtg+/-
13	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2633	2633	IND	1	1,0	12	10	0,80
17	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2602	2602	IND	1	1,0	16	10	0,80
19	GM	Nihal Sarin	2578	2578	IND	1	1,0	18	10	0,80
23	GM	Chanda Sandipan	2534	2534	IND	1	1,0	21	10	0,80
24	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2534	2534	IND	1	1,0	22	10	0,80
25	GM	Debashis Das	2532	2532	IND	1	1,0	23	10	0,80
26	IM	Gukesh D	2529	2529	IND	½	0,5	83	10	-4,20
28	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2524	2524	IND	1	1,0	25	10	0,80
30	GM	Venkatesh M.R.	2517	2517	IND	1	1,0	27	10	0,80
31	IM	Stany G.A.	2507	2507	IND	1	1,0	28	10	0,80
35	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2497	2497	IND	½	0,5	85	10	-4,20
36	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2494	2494	IND	1	1,0	31	10	0,80
39	IM	Iniyan P	2487	2487	IND	1	1,0	34	10	0,80
42	IM	Vignesh N R	2476	2476	IND	1	1,0	37	10	0,80
45	IM	Sadhwani Raunak	2455	2455	IND	1	1,0	39	10	0,80
46	CM	Aditya Mittal	2454	2454	IND	1	1,0	40	10	0,80
47	CM	Mendonca Leon Luke	2446	2446	IND	1	1,0	41	10	0,80
50	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2429	2429	IND	1	1,0	44	10	0,80
51	GM	Laxman R.R.	2425	2425	IND	1	1,0	45	10	0,80
53	IM	Raja Rithvik R	2423	2423	IND	1	1,0	47	10	0,80
55	IM	Akshat Khamparia	2415	2415	IND	½	0,5	87	10	-4,20
56	GM	Sundararajan Kidambi	2413	2413	IND	1	1,0	49	10	0,80
57	IM	Akash G	2411	2411	IND	1	1,0	50	10	0,80
58	IM	Nitin S.	2408	2408	IND	1	1,0	51	10	0,80
62		Saurabh Anand	2385	2385	IND	1	1,0	55	20	1,60
63	IM	Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad	2384	2384	IND	1	1,0	56	20	1,60
67	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2361	2361	IND	1	1,0	60	10	0,80
68	IM	Fenil Shah	2360	2360	IND	1	1,0	61	10	0,90
69	FM	Pranav Anand	2359	2359	IND	½	0,5	88	20	-8,40
71	IM	Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari	2352	2352	IND	1	1,0	63	10	0,80
72	IM	Sidhant Mohapatra	2348	2348	IND	1	1,0	64	10	0,80
73	FM	Shailesh Dravid	2316	2316	IND	1	1,0	65	20	1,60
74	CM	Bharath Subramaniyam H	2301	2301	IND	1	1,0	66	20	1,60
75		Ajay Karthikeyan	2298	2298	IND	1	1,0	67	40	3,20
76	WIM	Priyanka Nutakki	2297	2297	IND	1	1,0	68	40	3,20
78	IM	Sharma Dinesh K.	2286	2286	IND	1	1,0	70	10	0,80
80	IM	Ravi Thandalam Shanmugam	2276	2276	IND	½	0,5	89	10	-4,20
82	CM	Mullick Raahil	2275	2275	IND	1	1,0	73	40	3,20
84	WIM	Divya Deshmukh	2266	2266	IND	1	1,0	75	40	3,20
86		Kunal M.	2258	2258	IND	1	1,0	77	20	1,60
87		Pranav V	2258	2258	IND	1	1,0	78	20	1,60
88	IM	Praveen Kumar C	2243	2243	IND	1	1,0	79	10	0,80
91	FM	Jeet Jain	2219	2219	IND	0	0,0	100	20	-1,60
93		Panda Sambit	2218	2218	IND	0	0,0	102	40	-3,20
95	FM	Srihari L R	2211	2211	IND	0	0,0	104	20	-1,60
101	IM	Gokhale Chandrashekhar	2185	2185	IND	0	0,0	109	10	-0,80
103		Gandhi Anish	2156	2156	IND	0	0,0	111	20	-1,60
106		Jaeel Atharva	2145	2145	IND	0	0,0	114	40	-3,20
110		Thrish Karthik	2096	2096	IND	½	0,5	90	40	16,80
111		Shiva Pavan Teja Sharma U	2093	2093	IND	0	0,0	118	20	-1,60
114	WCM	Mrudul Dehankar	2078	2078	IND	0	0,0	121	40	-3,20
115	WFM	Bommini Mounika Akshaya	2076	2076	IND	½	0,5	91	40	16,80
116		Kumar Gaurav	2074	2074	IND	0	0,0	122	20	-1,60
119		Shanya Mishra	2026	2026	IND	0	0,0	125	40	-3,20
121		Sri Sai Baswanth P	2018	2018	IND	½	0,5	92	20	8,40
122	CM	Shahil Dey	2007	2007	IND	0	0,0	127	40	-3,20
123	WFM	Sanskriti Goyal	2006	2006	IND	0	0,0	128	40	-3,20
124		Mohammed Dilshad	2006	2006	IND	½	0,5	93	20	8,40
125		Krithigga K	2002	2002	IND	0	0,0	129	40	-3,20
126		Niklesh Kumar Jain	1995	1995	IND	0	0,0	130	20	-1,60
127	WIM	Gokhale Anupama	1994	1994	IND	0	0,0	131	20	-1,60
128		Parthasarathy R	1989	1989	IND	0	0,0	132	20	-1,60
132		Anilkumar O.T.	1975	1975	IND	0	0,0	136	20	-1,60
133		Mota Pankit	1974	1974	IND	½	0,5	94	20	8,40
138	WCM	Isha Sharma	1935	1935	IND	0	0,0	141	20	-1,60
139		Rakshith Srinivasan	1923	1923	IND	0	0,0	142	40	-3,20
141		Souradip Deb	1899	1899	IND	0	0,0	144	20	-1,60
142		Gokhale Rishabh Chandrashekhar	1895	1895	IND	0	0,0	145	40	-3,20
144		Abid Ali Mujawar	1869	1869	IND	0	0,0	147	20	-1,60
145		Rohit S	1868	1868	IND	½	0,5	95	40	16,80
146	WFM	Meghna C H	1863	1863	IND	0	0,0	148	20	-1,60
147	WFM	Dhyana Patel	1848	1848	IND	0	0,0	149	40	-3,20
148		Jinan Jomon	1848	1848	IND	0	0,0	150	40	-3,20
150		Varsha Ramesh	1831	1831	IND	0	0,0	152	40	-3,20
151	AIM	Kaushik G Iyer	1771	1771	IND	0	0,0	153	40	-3,20
153	AIM	Sidharth Balaji Sridharan	1732	1732	IND	0	0,0	155	40	-3,20
155		Devnani Kush	1650	1650	IND	0	0,0	157	40	-3,20
156		Aagam Aditya E	1649	1649	IND	0	0,0	158	40	-3,20
157		Antony Jesumarian Leslie	1621	1621	IND	0	0,0	159	40	-3,20
159		Singh Gurmeher	1589	1589	IND	0	0,0	160	40	-3,20
162		Rebecca Jesumarian	1561	1561	IND	0	0,0	163	40	-3,20
167	AIM	Vishal Choudary B	1519	1519	IND	0	0,0	168	40	-3,20
168		Harikrishnan C	1514	1514	IND	0	0,0	169	40	-3,20
169		Sharon Rafael	1474	1474	IND	½	0,5	97	40	16,80

The beautiful Sharjah Chess Club where the tournament will be held from 22nd to the 31st of March 2019

Surya Sekhar Ganguly is the strongest Indian in the fray | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Abhijeet Gupta and his wife Aditi with GM Deepan Chakkravarthy | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Abhijeet had a tough game in round one, but he managed to win! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Nihal Sarin had a strong start to his campaign | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The youngest GM in the world at this point of time! D. Gukesh. He was held to a draw in round one by Akshaya Bommini Mounika | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The top seed of the event - Wang Hao. The Chinese GM won the HD Bank International (check his t-shirt) and also the rapid tournament in Saudi Arabia. He will be looking forward to keeping up his form and scoring another win. | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Vladimir Fedoseev will be looking to make his mark at the event | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Not to be messed with Maxim Matlakov | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The top boards of the playing hall | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The Sharjah Open organization team | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Inauguration on the top board! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

A very nice touch inside the Sharjah Chess Club - The Checkmate Cafe! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The ChessBase India Group Tour

The ChessBase India Group Tour to Sharjah Masters consists of seven players - WIM Angela Franco, Niklesh Jain (manager), Mrudul Dehankar, Sanskriti Goyal, Souradip Deb, Rakshith Srinivasan and Kaushik Iyer. The idea of ChessBase India Power Group Tours is simple - young children should be able to travel to important tournaments and to fulfil their potential even if their parents or guardians are unable to travel with them. With this service we not only hope that there would not only be a financial gain for the players (as their parents don't have to travel) but also it teaches the players the art of being independent and responsible.

Group Tour Manager Niklesh Jain with his wife Angela Franco, Souradip Deb, Sanskriti Goyal and Mrudul Dehankar left together from Mumbai | Photo: Niklesh Jain

They were joined by Rakshith Srinivasan and Kaushik Iyer from Bangalore | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Sanskriti Goyal lost to Nasanjargal Urtnasan | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Mrudul Dehankar fought hard against Debashis Das but in the end had to accept defeat | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Laxman beat Souradip Deb | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Rakshith Srinivasan lost to Gulrukhbegim Tohirjonova | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Kaushik Iyer lost to Amir Zaibi | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The rooms for the players travelling with ChessBase India Power

Spacious and comfortable with the perfect ambience to prepare in peace for the event

A kitchen to cook your own food!

A gym to stay fit and in the best physical shape for the tournament!

Stay updated with all the latest news of ChessBase India Power by liking the newly launched Facebook page.

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