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Six-way Tie For First After Three Rounds in Dubai

Six-way Tie For First After Three Rounds in Dubai

PeterDoggers
| 7 | Chess Event Coverage

Besides the Russian Team Championship, another strong event is under way: the 16th Dubai Open. After three rounds five GMs and one FM are tied for first place, with 3.0/: GM Romain Edouard of France, GM Axel Bachmann of Paraguay, GM Abhijeet Gupta of India, GM Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela and GM Anuar Ismagambetov of Kazakhstan as well as FM Hatim Al-Hadarani of Yemen.

All photos courtesy of the Dubai Open

The Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup, more known as the Dubai Open, takes place 7-17 April, 2014 at the Dubai Chess & Culture Club in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It's already the 16th edition, and so by now the organizers are highly experienced. The tournament director of the Tata Steel tournament spent a few days in Dubai and was impressed:

There are 148 participants from 39 countries, including 38 GMs and 8 WGMs, 16 IMs, 3 WIMs, 10 FMs and 5 WFMs. The top seed is Anton Korobov (Ukraine), followed by former Dubai Open champion Vladimir Akopian (Armenia). The rest of the top 10 includes Romain Edouard (France), Andrei Istratescu (France), Constantin Lupulescu (Romania), Csaba Balogh (Hungary), Gawain Jones (England), Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukraine), Bassem Amin (Egypt) and Eduardo Iturrizaga (Venezuela). Nineteen players are rated above 2600.

The first round was held on Monday, April 7th. It got pretty crowded before the start of the game on board one, between WIM Ivana Maria Furtado of India against top seed GM Anton Korobov of Ukraine:

L-R Mahdi Abdulrahim (Chief Arbiter), Ahmad Fardan (General Secretary of Sharjah Sport Council), Ibrahim Al Bannai (Chairman of Dubai Chess Club and President of Arab Chess Federation), Ibrahim Abdulmalik (General Secretary of UAE sports and Youth), Sheikh Saud Al Moala (Chairman of Sharjah Chess Club), Abdulaziz Khoury (Vice President of UAE Chess Federation)

Korobov won this game rather quickly, as did most of the top players who faced lower rated opponents. However, 20-year old Woman Grandmaster Mona Khaled of Egypt, 89th seed and rated 2140, surprisingly defeated 14th seed GM Tigran Petrosian of Armenia, rated 2647. She reacted rather well to White's 1.b3 opening and had no mercy when he avoided a draw.


An excellent win by WGM Mona Khaled of Egypt against...
...Tigran Petrosian of Armenia
In the same round a player named 'Turar' (nothing else, that's how he's registered at FIDE too) from Kazakhstan, rated 1997, beat IM Adrien Demuth of France in a theoretical line of the Grünfeld that incidentally will be treated with a lengthy articly by GM Evgeny Postny in our April issue (to be published in a few days!) of The Master's Bulletin. The game is also a nice example of how to checkmate with bishop and knight:

More upsets were seen in the second round. Here's FM Amin Tabatabaei of Iran beating a grandmaster from Switzerland convincingly:

The Dubai Chess & Culture Club

The 15-year-old Indian player Karthik V. Ap was too strong fro Greek GM Anthanasios Mastrovasilis - really a model game from the white side of a Breyer Ruy Lopez:

The next report will surely see some interesting GM vs GM clashes from Dubai. Let's finish with a small, not too difficult puzzle. White to play and win.

Second seed Vladimir Akopian
Romain Edouard, among the players on 3.0/3

Dubai Open 2014 | Round 3 Standings (Top 30)

Rk. SNo Title Name FED Rtg Pts. TB1 TB2 TB3
1 3 GM Edouard Romain FRA 2670 3 0 6 4
2 20 GM Bachmann Axel PAR 2598 3 0 5,5 4
3 12 GM Gupta Abhijeet IND 2630 3 0 5 4
4 70 FM Al-Hadarani Hatim YEM 2249 3 0 4,5 4
5 10 GM Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo VEN 2635 3 0 4 3,5
6 35 GM Ismagambetov Anuar KAZ 2493 3 0 3 3
7 1 GM Korobov Anton UKR 2698 2,5 0 6 4,5
8 4 GM Istratescu Andrei FRA 2667 2,5 0 6 4,5
9 5 GM Lupulescu Constantin ROU 2660 2,5 0 6 4,5
10 63 FM Tabatabaei M.Amin IRI 2298 2,5 0 6 4,5
11 2 GM Akopian Vladimir ARM 2674 2,5 0 6 4
12 6 GM Balogh Csaba HUN 2656 2,5 0 5,5 4,5
13 15 GM Rakhmanov Aleksandr RUS 2610 2,5 0 5,5 4,5
14 17 GM Andriasian Zaven ARM 2603 2,5 0 5,5 4,5
15 24 GM Brkic Ante CRO 2568 2,5 0 5,5 4,5
16 28 GM Jankovic Alojzije CRO 2554 2,5 0 5,5 4,5
17 34 GM Debashis Das IND 2504 2,5 0 5 4
18 16 GM Stevic Hrvoje CRO 2607 2,5 0 4,5 3,5
19 27 GM Ghaem Maghami Ehsan IRI 2556 2,5 0 4,5 3,5
20 39 GM Shyam Sundar M. IND 2481 2,5 0 4 3,5
21 18 GM Iordachescu Viorel MDA 2601 2,5 0 4 3
22 31 GM Rahman Ziaur BAN 2513 2,5 0 4 3
23 21 GM Lalith Babu M.R. IND 2594 2,5 0 3,5 3
24 37 IM Ghosh Diptayan IND 2485 2,5 0 3,5 3
25 9 GM Amin Bassem EGY 2637 2 0 6 5
26 26 GM Kotsur Pavel KAZ 2557 2 0 5,5 5
27 44 IM Kjartansson Gudmundur ISL 2440 2 0 5,5 4,5
28 23 GM Jumabayev Rinat KAZ 2580 2 0 5,5 4,5
29 25 GM Stojanovic Mihajlo SRB 2568 2 0 5,5 4
30 69 Karthik V. Ap IND 2250 2 0 5 5

Full standings here

You can watch the games live here. Games in this report were retrieved from TWIC.

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.”

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