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5 In The Lead At Thai Open

5 In The Lead At Thai Open

PeterDoggers
| 4 | Chess Event Coverage

After five rounds, the same number of players are sharing the lead with 4.5 points at the Thai Open: GMs Francisco Vallejo Pons, Wang Hao, Jozsef Horvath, Jan Gustafsson and IM Oliver Dimakiling.

The Thai Open is being held for the 15th time already and this year a record 19 grandmasters have traveled to Thailand. The top seed is GM Wang Hao of China, who is playing his first chess of 2015. Other notable participants are GM Nigel Short, GM Jan Gustafsson and GM Francisco Vallejo Pons.

In the first round most of the GMs faced players rated at least 400 points lower and so there were hardly any upsets. The next day was different. 

Filipino GM John-Paul Gomez was smashed in a mere 19 moves by Australian teenager Jack Puccini, who must have enjoyed that Morra Gambit:

A crushing win for Jack Puccini. | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.

Danish GM Allan Stig Rasmussen lost to Sharma Hemant, a 22-year-old Indian:


And then there was Australian IM Max Illingworth, the 14th seed, who was shocked by 13-year-old R. Vaishali, an Indian girl who is currently ranked as the second-strongest for her age in the world.

R. Vaishali vs Illingworth. | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.

In the fourth round Wang Hao was held to a draw by Jozsef Horvath but the big news was GM Nigel Short's loss against the Filipino GM Oliver Barbosa. The English player basically blundered a pawn after which Barbosa made no mistake.

GM Oliver Barbosa. | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.

In the fifth round Gustafsson and Vallejo, two good friends, drew rather quickly and were joined in the lead by Wang Hao. The Chinese GM is “now fully recovered from illness” according to the official report, and won against Barbosa in a Vienna.

Wang Hao is back behind the chess board for the first time
since December. | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.

Hungary's Jozsef Horvath also moved to first place but more surprising is the name of IM Oliver Dimakiling of the Philippines. The 24th-seeded player defeated Indian IM Diptayan Ghosh to reach 4.5 points as well:

The playing hall. | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.

Veteran GMs Nigel Short and Eugene Torre both won in round five and can be found in the group on half a point behind the leaders.

2015 Thai Open | Round 5 Standings (Top 20)

Rk. SNo Naam FED RtgI Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3 rtg+/-
1 2 GM Vallejo Pons Francisco ESP 2696 4,5 0 18 15,75 4,5
23 1 GM Wang Hao CHN 2713 4,5 0 16,5 14,25 1,7
23 8 GM Horvath Jozsef HUN 2522 4,5 0 16,5 14,25 11,6
4 4 GM Gustafsson Jan GER 2639 4,5 0 15,5 13,25 6,5
5 24 IM Dimakiling Oliver PHI 2417 4,5 0 13,5 12 6,7
6 82 Ritviz Parab IND 2188 4 0 16,5 12,5 96,4
7 34 IM Bersamina Paulo PHI 2390 4 0 16,5 12 10,2
89 15 GM Kunte Abhijit IND 2477 4 0 15,5 12 0,9
89 27 IM Smirnov Anton AUS 2410 4 0 15,5 12 4,8
10 3 GM Short Nigel D ENG 2678 4 0 15,5 11,5 -3,8
11 13 GM Barbosa Oliver PHI 2489 4 0 15,5 11 10,6
12 16 GM Deepan Chakkravarthy IND 2475 4 0 15,5 11 5,2
13 12 GM Laylo Darwin PHI 2496 4 0 15 11,75 1,7
14 5 GM Socko Bartosz POL 2628 4 0 15 11,5 -2,7
15 6 GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar IND 2619 4 0 15 11 -2,9
16 26 IM Palit Somak IND 2415 4 0 15 10,5 4,2
17 18 GM Torre Eugenio PHI 2460 4 0 14,5 11 -1,4
18 29 Ravi Teja S. IND 2405 4 0 14,5 10,5 -0,7
19 11 GM Rasmussen Allan Stig DEN 2507 4 0 13,5 11 -2,2
20 25 IM Himanshu Sharma IND 2416 4 0 13,5 10,5 0,8

(Full standings here.)

The tournament takes place in the beautiful Dusit Thani Resport in the Thai Beach resort of Pattaya. Next month the World Schools Individual Championship will be held in the same location.

Four more rounds will be played in the Thai Open; the last is on Sunday. Some 299 players from 42 countries are playing in two groups. The first prize in the open group is 100,000 Baht (2885 Euro / U.S. $3083).

The Dusit Thani Resport... | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.
...known for providing arguably the best snacks of any chess tournament in the world. | Photo courtesy of the Thai Open.


PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

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.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


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