Hasselbacken Open: Inspired Adhiban Edged Out By Andreikin
Dmitry Andreikin won the first Hasselbacken Open in Stockholm on Sunday. Russia's fifth grandmaster edged out Baskaran Adhiban of India after both had finished on 7.5/9.
Main image: Andreikin with his wife and daughter. | Photo Lars OA Hedlund.
This final report on the Hasselbacken Open quickly follows the story about the first seven rounds. Before the start of the weekend there was a five-way tie for first place among GMs Sebastien Maze (France), Ilia Smirin (Israel), Dmitry Andreikin (Russia), Jorden van Foreest (Netherlands), and Santosh Gujrathi Vidit (India).
On Saturday, Andreikin was playing India's rising star Vidit on board one. The 21-year-old grandmaster is doing well with a 2658 rating; he won another 8.1 points in Stockholm. Vidit also proved up to the task of facing the strong Russian grandmaster as Black. Here's the interesting Trompowsky they played:
Another young star held his own with the black pieces against an experienced grandmaster: Jorden van Foreest. The Dutchman, who turned 17 shortly before the tournament, found some nice tactics against Ilia Smirin in an opening that Magnus Carlsen plays every now and then: the Ruy Lopez with 4...g6. Apparently the dictum “a King's Indian without light-squared bishops is in White's favor” doesn't count here!
And so Andreikin, Smirin, Van Foreest and Vidit were still tied for first place after eight rounds, but not Sebastien Mazé. He lost to his compatriot Vlad Tkachiev in a textbook game for isolated queen pawn positions.
Baskaran Adhiban, another Indian GM active in Stockholm, joined the group of leaders with a black win over Russin grandmaster Aleksey Goganov. It's not every day that a (winning) knight sac on f2 turns out to be the novelty! It must be noted that it was a really good game by both players.
A great game won by Baskaran Adhiban. | Photo Lars OA Hedlund.
No fewer than 10 players shared lead after eight rounds. The next day Adhiban was the first of them to score another win and secure shared first place. He followed a line in the 3.f3 Grünfeld that became popular after the 2012 Anand-Gelfand world championship match, and could use his preparation to start a killing attack. Lots of nice variations!
Eventually only one player joined the Indian grandmaster in first place: Dmitry Andreikin. The top seed proved the better calculator against Borki Predojevic in a highly tactical middlegame where by move 12 four pieces were hanging.
When the smoke had cleared, Black's positional advantage proved decisive.
Andreikin won the 50,000 SEK first prize (€5,391/$6,142) as he had the better Buchholz; a somewhat unlucky Adhiban took home 25,000 SEK (€2,695/$3,071) since prizes were not shared in Stockholm.
Father Andreikin: top seed, top finisher on Buchholz. | Photo Lars OA Hedlund.
Hasselbacken Open | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Title | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 1 | GM | Andreikin Dmitry | RUS | 2736 | 7,5 | 43,5 | 5 | 6 |
| 2 | 6 | GM | Adhiban B. | IND | 2663 | 7,5 | 42,5 | 4 | 6 |
| 3 | 5 | GM | Smirin Ilia | ISR | 2665 | 7 | 45,5 | 5 | 5 |
| 4 | 3 | GM | Almasi Zoltan | HUN | 2682 | 7 | 44,5 | 5 | 6 |
| 5 | 16 | GM | Maze Sebastien | FRA | 2617 | 7 | 44,5 | 4 | 6 |
| 6 | 7 | GM | Tkachiev Vladislav | FRA | 2660 | 7 | 42,5 | 5 | 5 |
| 7 | 8 | GM | Sethuraman S.P. | IND | 2658 | 7 | 42,5 | 4 | 6 |
| 8 | 10 | GM | Vidit Santosh Gujrathi | IND | 2648 | 7 | 42 | 4 | 5 |
| 9 | 25 | GM | van Foreest Jorden | NED | 2551 | 7 | 41,5 | 4 | 6 |
| 10 | 2 | GM | Shirov Alexei | LAT | 2686 | 7 | 40,5 | 4 | 6 |
| 11 | 28 | GM | Greenfeld Alon | ISR | 2541 | 7 | 40,5 | 4 | 6 |
| 12 | 13 | GM | Bachmann Axel | PAR | 2621 | 7 | 40 | 5 | 6 |
| 13 | 39 | IM | Liang Awonder | USA | 2410 | 7 | 34 | 4 | 6 |
| 14 | 12 | GM | Mareco Sandro | ARG | 2625 | 6,5 | 44 | 4 | 6 |
| 15 | 19 | GM | Sevian Samuel | USA | 2589 | 6,5 | 43,5 | 4 | 4 |
| 16 | 4 | GM | Postny Evgeny | ISR | 2673 | 6,5 | 42 | 5 | 5 |
| 17 | 30 | GM | Mikhalevski Victor | ISR | 2516 | 6,5 | 41,5 | 5 | 6 |
| 18 | 23 | GM | Vorobiov Evgeny E. | RUS | 2572 | 6,5 | 41,5 | 5 | 5 |
| 19 | 24 | GM | Burmakin Vladimir | RUS | 2554 | 6,5 | 41 | 4 | 5 |
| 20 | 21 | GM | Stefansson Hannes | ISL | 2581 | 6,5 | 40,5 | 5 | 5 |
(Full final standings here.)
Previous report
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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