Dubai: After eight gruelling rounds, the 19th Dubai Open Chess Tournament–Shaikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup goes down to the wire as 16 players — including three former champions — all have a decent shot at winning the tournament.
Defending champion Grandmaster (GM) Gawain Jones of the UK, 2010 champion GM Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela and GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of India — the seventh-round co-leaders — maintained their hold of the lead after they drew their respective matches in Monday’s eighth round to hike their scores to 6.5 points each.
Turkey’s GM Mustafa Yilmaz made it a four-way tie at the top after he won over Argentina’s GM Sandro Mareco.
In Tuesday’s final round at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club, Gujrathi will take on Iturrizaga at the top board, while Jones will face Yilmaz on the second board.
However, a group of 12 players led by the top two seeds, who are just half a point behind, can also steal the limelight with a win in the final round, and provided the four leaders draw their matches.
Jones, playing black, drew his match against Iturrizaga at the top board after 33 moves of a King’s Indian Defence. Iturrizaga managed to harass the white king in the centre of the board and force it to begrudgingly flee towards the g3-square. Jones, however, kept things under control and eventually force a draw by repetition of moves.
Gujrathi had to work harder to achieve a draw, having to defend a difficult endgame against Ukraine’s GM Anton Korobov, the tournament’s highest-rated player.
The Slav Defence game was roughly equal out of the opening until the Indian, playing white, tried to force matters on the 25th move, winning the exchange, while giving Korobov a pawn majority in the kingside.
Although he had two rooks against Korobov’s bishop and rook, Gujrathi was gradually outplayed by the Ukrainian, who proceeded to create two dangerously advanced passed pawns on the "e" and "f" files.
Korobov managed to push both pawns just two squares away from promotion, but Gujrathi’s king was just in time to support the rook in the defense against the rampaging pawns.
Gujrathi managed to hold fort, as Korobov eventually exchanged both pawns for the rook, leaving the Ukrainian with a bishop and a pawn on the a-file in theoritically drawn endgame.
The Indian, though, still had to avoid a few subtle traps before finally nailing the half point on the 103rd move.
With the draw, Korobov dropped to joint second place with six points along with second-seed compatriot GM Alexander Areshchenko and Spain's International Master (IM) Jaime Santos Latasa, the tournament's surprise leader until the middle rounds and the only non-GM in the leaderboard. Others with six points are 2013 champion GM Aleksandr Rakhmanov of Russia, Egypt's GM Bassem Amin and GM Ahmed Adly, Brazil's GM Alexandr Fier, Ukraine's GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko, Bulgaria's GM Sergei Zhigalko, Singapore's GM Zhang Zhong, Iran's GM Pouya Idani and Serbia's GM Aleksandar Indjic.
Arab players
Adly joined Amin at the top of the Arab standings after surviving a tense battle against IM Oliver Dimakiling of the Philippines to score a win in 53 moves, while Amin drew his game against Latasa.
GM Abdelrahman Hesham also of Egypt is half a point behind after a win over Spain's IM Miguel Santos Ruiz.
UAE players
GM Salem AR Saleh of the UAE dropped out of contention for the championship after a loss to Fier in a complicated Sicilian game that stretched to 62 moves. Saleh remains the highest-placed Emirati with five points, followed by Fide Master (FM) Saeed Ishaq, who has 4.5 points after dropping his game to IM G. A. Stany of India.
IM Ibrahim Sultan improved to four points after defeating Egypt's Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Mona Khaled.
Technical mastery
With more than 200 players from 42 countries, the Dubai Open has become an important training ground for local players and tournament organisers, according to Najib Mohammed Saleh, board member of the club. Aside from helping hone the skills of prominent players and national champions, Saleh said many top arbiters and organisers in the region have honed their skills in the Dubai Open, which has been the longest-running elite open tournament in the region.
The Dubai Open tournament officials are led by International Arbiter (IA) Mahdi Abdul Rahim, the chief arbiter of the tournament, who is assisted by IA Naji Al Radhi of the UAE, IA Jamal Qassem of Yemen, IA Walid Abu Obaid of Jordan, IA Augusto Marcial of the Philippines and National Arbiter (NA) Majid Abdouli of the UAE.
Saeed Yousuf Shakari is the tournament director, while other members of the tournament committee are Yahya Mohammed Saleh, the club's director of planning and development club, Moheb Sirajuddin and Ahmed Toukhi.
Mohammad Al Husseini, executive director of the club, said the tournament has become known for the quality of its participants, which gives talented players on the hunt for a GM or an IM title good opportunities to earn title norms.
Awarding ceremony
The tournament games are being broadcast on the Dubai Chess and Culture Club’s website and other leading chess websites such as Chess24.com.
The Dubai Chess Open Tournament offers a total cash purse of $50,000, with the champion receiving $13,000 and custody of the Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup. The awarding ceremony will be held Wednesday night at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.
