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Major upsets marked the opening day of the Qatar Masters giving an indication of how evenly matched the field is in the strongest world open international chess tournament. |
At the top of the tables, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was held to a draw by Stelios Halkias of Greece. Kramnik, with his black pieces, got nothing and Halkias in fact was putting pressure when he decided to let go and sign the peace treaty.
Georgian girl Bela Khotenashvili also put it across compatriot Baadur Jobava, a highly respected player. Known as a tactical player, Khotenashvili prepared well in the opening and didn’t try to ‘dry out’ the position with black pieces but searching for attacking opportunities. After just a couple of inaccuracies Jobava already found himself in positional troubles and was outplayed before the first time-control.
Indian GM Ankit Rajpara caused another upset of the day when he defeated German GM Arkadij Naiditsch. Playing with black pieces, Rajpara, managed to find a very interesting plan in the opening, moving the Knight from f5 to h6 and then back to g8 square with an idea to support the rook h8 attacking king’s side with h-pawn.
Naiditsch probably underestimated the threat and later on got into a severe time-trouble trying to defend his king.
The sixth seed Grandmaster P Harikrishna got a full point defeating Andhra state-mate D Harika. Playing an irregular opening, Harika was close to achieving a draw against her fancied rival but Harikrishna’s ability to put pressure in the endgame eventually made the difference.
Abhijeet Gupta faced some early resistance from Irine Sukandar Kharisma of Indonesia but the former found his way forward on the queen side out a queen pawn game in the middle game. Knocking down a pawn, Gupta seized control and scored an easy first round victory.
Another interesting first round game was played by Chinese GM Ding Liren against Qatar GM Mohammed al-Sayed. 8.g4 with immediate attack on king’s side caught the attention of the audience.
The lower rated Qatari player defended very well and created counter play on queen’s side, but unluckily he overlooked Queen’s trade with winning an important pawn by Chinese and couldn’t manage to hold the game.
