The International Chess Festival “Moscow Open 2013″ is taking place from 31st January to 11th February, 2013, at the Russian State Social University (RSSU), B. Pick Street, 4, metro station “Botanical Garden” in Moscow.
The Open tournaments for men and women started to have stronger pairings on the top boards, and the players didn’t hesitate to play aggressively to try to gain an advantage.
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The main open for men, the number of perfect scores went down from 32 to just 8 in this round – GM Rauf Mamedov,GM Chanda Sandipan, GM Pavel Ponkratov, GM Alexandre Danin, GM Ildar Ibragimov, GM Nyzhnik, GM Abhidan, and GM Venkatesh.
The 16 year-old Ukrainian Illya Nyzhnyk scored his third consecutive victory. He played against GM Kirill Stupak on the second board. In what seemed to become a positional struggle, the Ukrainian started to roll his kingside pawns down the board; the attack turned out to be too strong for the few black pieces that were defending on that side.
Another early winner of the round was the American Ildar Ibragimov. He beat IM Sergey Pavlov with the black pieces after playing an opposite-side castling French Defense. Ibragimov only needed 27 moves to prove that his pieces were faster to attack the opponent’s king, even though his own monarch seemed to be more open.
A lot of strong players from India have arrived to the Moscow Open, and they seem to be ready to make a good impression. Eight of them got to the third round with 2/2, but unfortunately for them, there were 2 match-ups that faced them against each other.
M.R. Venkatesh was paired against one of the best players from his country – GM Surya Ganguly -, but anyway managed to beat him on the 5th board, after out-calculating his opponent near the time control.
B. Adhiban defeated the lower-rated Indian FM Diptayan Ghosh in 40 moves. The final position leaves a very good impression, with the white queen, rook and knight all lined up against a lonely king.
The third victory for the Indians was achieved by the Gibraltar Masters finalist GM Chanda Sandipan, who beat the Russian IM Mikhail Antipov with the black pieces, after nurturing masterfully a small advantage that he got in the middle game.
Not everything was good for the Indians. World Cup semi-finalist Harika Dronavalli lost on the first board against the strong Azerbaijani GM Rauf Mamedov, and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi couldn’t win against the lower-rated Venezuelan FM Alexander Hernandez.
Tough tournament to win.