Grand Prix Events / 2015 World Open
100 Titled Players Eight tie for first at the 2015 World Open;
GM Aleksandr Lenderman champion on tiebreaks By GM ARUN PRASAD SUBRAMANIAN
T
he 43rd Annual World Open was held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia from July 1st through 5th, 2015. In the Open section eight players tied for first place, however GM Aleksandr Lenderman emerged the winner on tiebreaks in an Armageddon playoff over GM Rauf Mamedov. This was only my second visit to one of the most successful open chess tournaments in the world; my first visit, in 2008, was very fruitful as I earned my final grandmaster (GM) title requirement and became a GM. Even though my past results gave me a good feeling about the event, I
was still dreading the grueling, two-games-a-day schedule. The tournament started off with an impressive list of top players including GM Luke McShane, GM Gata Kamsky, GM Ilya Smirin, GM Alex Shabalov,
and GM Alex Stripunsky. With a total of 32 GMs, 27 international masters, 38 FIDE masters, one woman grand master and two women FIDE masters (100 titles!) the event was one of the strong est open tournaments anywhere in the world. With such high level of competition combined with such a challenging schedule, the World Open is probably one of the most difficult tournaments for any professional player: the Tour de France of chess!
A FANTASTIC FINISH GM Ilya Smirin (2757)
FM Nikhilesh Kumar Kunche (2334) 43rd Annual World Open (1), Arlington, Virginia, 07.01.2015
Ludwig. The initial impression when looking at this position is that with most of the pieces exchanged the game is heading towards a draw. But from here on Black outplays White easily in a most instructive way!
Bc2 Rxe7 39. Bb1 Re5 40. Re2 Kg7 41. Kf1 Ng5 42. Rxe5 Nxh3, White resigned.
In a tough event like the World Open, you
start seeing good pairings as early as round two and so some grandmasters did suffer some setbacks, including, surprisingly, GM Axel Bachmann. The Paraguayan GM ended up tying for first place in the tournament but he lost early on to the lower-rated IM Shakil Abu Sufian from Bangladesh in a rather quick game. Axel had misjudged his oppo nent’s attacking chances and ended up paying a big price. GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran was slowly
WHITE TO PLAY
WHITE TO PLAY GM Ilya Smirin had a chance to put his tactical
skills on display against Nikhilesh Kunche. Can you find White’s next move?
18. Nd5!, Black resigned. A fantastic finish! (White is eyeing the c7-
square: 18. ... Qxa5 19. Qc5; of course not 18. ... Qxc2 19. Nc7+ Kf8 20. Rd8+ Be8 21. Rxe8 mate.)
AMAZING TECHNIQUE John Ludwig (2395) GM Rauf Mamedov (2696)
43rd Annual World Open (1), Arlington, Virginia, 07.01.2015
Mamedov showed amazing technique against
22. Bc4 a6 23. Bf1 Rc8 24. c4 a5 White is left without any proper plan and Black
will slowly attack the immobile queen side pawns.
25. b3 Ra8 26. g4 Ra6 27. h4 Rb6 28. Be2 a4 29. Bd1 axb3 30. axb3 Rb4 31. h5 b5 Black has improved his position over the last
10 moves and with each further move his advantage is increasing.
32. hxg6 hxg6 33. f5 bxc4 34. f6 cxb3 35. Rh3
After 35. fxe7+ Kg7 the b3-pawn is stronger than the e7-pawn.
35. ... Kg8 36. Kg2 Ne4 37. fxe7 b2 38.
trying to outplay his opponent Michael Song from Canada in a queen-and-pawn endgame, but the Canadian’s strong defense left the game dead even. Just when a draw looked unavoidable, Ghaem pushed too far and ended up losing the game, yet he also came back to tie for first place in the end! This is a good example of never giving up by these strong players. A few other grandmasters were really
chal lenged in this second round, eventually conceding draws to lower-rated opponents. After this round it was generally a battle between the top-board grandmasters. My friend GM Magesh Panchanathan said, “These 2600+ GMs are ruthlessly outplaying even the 2500s.” Obviously they are 2600+ for a good reason! Here is a nice game with a positional Exchange sacrifice played by the Chinese Grandmaster Jianchao Zhou to defeat IM Dean Ippolito.
(see next game, next page)
www.uschess.org 27
PHOTO CREDIT: ALBERT SILVER
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