4th Dubai Open Chess Championship under way

by ChessBase
4/18/2012 – This tournament, with many foreign GMs, is taking place in the United Arab Emirates. After three rounds six players have perfect scores. In place seven we find Indian IM Tania Sachdev with 2.5/3. The tournament site says she beat GM Ivan Sokolov with black in round two, but the game is not available. We show you some stunning Google image search technology in this giant pictorial report.

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14th Dubai Open Chess Championship

Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup

This event is taking place from April 15th-23rd at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club, which is the most modern and biggest dedicated chess club in the world. Its players constitute the ‘backbone” of the UAE national team, and as a matter of fact those players have achieved outstanding successes on all levels.


Largest in the world? The famous Dubai Chess and Culture Club


The Copthorne Hotel where the players reside


GMs waiting for transport to the tournament venue


The bus shuttle takes them to the Dubai Chess and Culture Club


The entrance to the famous chess club, billed as the biggest in the world


Al Mamzer Beach Park, close to the playing venue [View Larger Map]

Al Mamzar Park covers an area of 106 hectares and offers barbecue sites, private chalets, swimming pool, food kiosks, sheltered beach and safe lagoon, a scenic train and many children's play areas.


The "golden sand beach" adjacent to the park

Photos above were provided by GM Sergey Volkov – below by the offical web site


The start of round on, with top seed Georgian GM Baadur Jobava, 2706, playing
untitled Kazakh Kazbek Primbetov, 2220. Jobava won in 49 moves.


GM Vladimir Akopian of Armenia, rated 2684


GM Amin Bassem of Egypt, rated 2608


Indian IM Tania Sachdev, rated 2414, with 2.5/3 points in seventh place

The PGN file supplied by the organisers (see link at the bottom of this report) includes a second round game Ivan Sokolov vs Tania Sachdev which is recorded as a black-piece victory for the latter – but does not include moves or a commentary. We have contacted Tania, who is currently preparing for round four, to find out the circumstances of this game.

Addendum: Rakesh Pai of Bangalore, India, showed us an Indian newspaper article which explains what happened: Loek Van Wely of Holland and his compatriot Ivan Sokolov failed to turn up in time for the game. Akshayraj Kore and Tania Sachdev were awarded walkovers by the arbiter. Kore pleaded that he wanted to play but the arbiter did not relent. Tania left for her hotel, but Kore hung in there with his request that was eventually granted after a meeting. When Tania was informed it was already too late for the Delhi girl as the game might well have continued way past midnight.


GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia, rated 2626

We retrieved the above picture from the official web site, where it is unhelpully captioned "DSC_0766.jpg". Not recalling immediately who exactly this familiar face was we use the advanced Google picture search to identify it. This amazing technology allows you to point to a picture and ask for similar images. And back it came, with this stunning photo which is entitled "Sweet cake with unique decoration". If Google stores the search operation you will be able to see the other results here. Guys, you still have to work on this...

Apologies to Mikheil – but it is funny.


Russian GM Volkov Sergey, 2623, who sent us photographic impressions from Dubai


A hoodie? Seriously? India GM Parimarjan Negi, rated 2639


Iranian WIM Shayesteh Ghader Pour, rated 2248, in her game against her husband ...


... GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, who comments on their game in the video report below


Top seed and leader Baadur Jobava from Georgia

Top standings after three rounds

Rnk
Player
Ti.
Nat
Rtng
Pts
1
Jobava Baadur
GM
GEO
2706
3.0
2
Ni Hua
GM
CHN
2637
3.0
3
Mchedlishvili Mikheil
GM
GEO
2626
3.0
4
Pantsulaia Levan
GM
GEO
2595
3.0
5
Kravtsiv Martyn
GM
UKR
2588
3.0
6
Sandipan Chanda
GM
IND
2595
3.0
7
Tania Sachdev
IM
IND
2414
2.5
8
Petrosian Tigran L
GM
ARM
2643
2.5
9
Gopal G N
GM
IND
2572
2.5
10
Akopian Vladimir
GM
ARM
2684
2.5
11
Grigoryan Karen H
IM
ARM
2510
2.5
12
Arutinian David
GM
GEO
2553
2.5
13
Miroshnichenko Evgenij
GM
UKR
2624
2.5
14
Shyam Nikil P
IM
IND
2490
2.5
15
Andriasian Zaven
GM
ARM
2616
2.5
16
Nisipeanu Liviu-Dieter
GM
ROU
2643
2.5
17
Amin Bassem
GM
EGY
2608
2.5
18
Volkov Sergey
GM
RUS
2623
2.5
19
Baklan Vladimir
GM
UKR
2612
2.5
20
Kovchan Alexander
GM
UKR
2598
2.5
21
Zhou Weiqi
GM
CHN
2628
2.5
22
Petrosian Davit G
GM
ARM
2463
2.5
23
Kuzubov Yuriy
GM
UKR
2615
2.5
24
Iordachescu Viorel
GM
MDA
2644
2.5
25
Ezat Mohamed
IM
EGY
2441
2.5
26
Swapnil S Dhopade
IM
IND
2426
2.5
27
Lalith Babu M R
GM
IND
2532
2.5
28
Shyam Sundar M
IM
IND
2474
2.5

Video reports by Vijay Kumar


The opening of the 14th Dubai Open Chess Championship with IM Vishal Sareen


Interviews with Ghaem Maghami, who comments on his second round game against his wife
WIM Ghader Pour Shayesteh, Jobava Baadur and G.N. Gopal.


Links

A selection of games are being broadcast shown as a live stream on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Copyright ChessBase


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