Six-way Tie For First After Three Rounds in Dubai
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:
Third round starts in a few hours. Interesting pairings in a very well organized event. I enjoy my stay here a lot. pic.twitter.com/C1AHoHEPM1
— Jeroen Van Den Berg (@Jvdbergchess) April 9, 2014
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:
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.
More upsets were seen in the second round. Here's FM Amin Tabatabaei of Iran beating a grandmaster from Switzerland convincingly:
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.
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.
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.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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