Goa GM 2018 Round 1: No less than Batumi!

by Sagar Shah - 14/10/2018

It is for the first time that the smallest state of India - Goa is organizing a grandmaster event. The Goa Chess Association has left no stone unturned in giving the best facilities to the players. The author of this article just returned from the Batumi Olympiad 2018, and finds the playing hall better than what was used in Georgia! The first round was played in the A group, while three rounds were played in the B-group. No grandmaster lost his game but there were a couple of draws. At the same time Deepan Chakkravarthy played some exciting chess to light up the event! Here's an illustrated report from the event with photos, videos, analysis and much more.

Just a week ago Amruta and I were at the biggest chess event in the World of chess - the Olympiad! Have a look at how the stadium hosting the top teams at the Olympiad looked like.

The Batumi Olympiad 2018, the biggest chess event in the world | Photo: Amruta Mokal

And now we are in Goa and I would say the playing hall is comparable, or even slightly better than what we witnessed at Batumi!

The Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium hosts the first edition of Goa International 2018 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Goa is the smallest state in India, but its ambitions are definitely not the smallest. Goa Chess Association was formed in the year 1978 with the intention of sending a few of the chess players from Goa to participate in the national tournament. Never did it imagine that 40 years later it would be hosting one of the biggest open tournaments in our country.

What do you think would be the cumulative Elo of all these GMs put together! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The Goa International Open Grandmaster Tournament 2018 has been organized in three categories A, B and C with participation of over 1200 players across the three groups making it the biggest ever sports event held in the state. There are 288 players in the A group with 22 grandmasters and 26 International Masters. The top seed of the tournament is GM Martyn Kravtsiv, who has an Elo of 2654 and is fresh from his success at the Gujarat GM Open 2018.

The Ukrainian GM Martyn Kravtsiv has been visiting India for nearly eight years now! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Initial moments of the first round of Goa International 2018

The first round did not see too many upsets. There were a couple of draws on top boards. But perhaps the most interesting game was the one between GM Farrukh Amonatov and Srreezza Potluri. The young girl from AP was just a piece up after the middlegame complications but went on to lose the game.

When moves fail, you have to make the stare work! The Farrukh Amonatov stare! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Stany's middlegame combination!

There are two players in contention to become India's 57th grandmaster at the Goa International 2018. One is Stany GA who has surpassed the Elo barrier of 2500, but needs his final GM norm. Next is IM Vignesh NR, who has his three GM norm but has to cover 30 Elo points. Stany's feat seems easier, but you never know! In the first round Stany played a very nice combination which we invite you to solve.

Stany vs Prajesh, Round 1

Black has just moved his king to d7, how should White continue?

Stany began with the fine move d5, shutting off the rook on a5.

Bb6! created a double attack on the queen and the rook and deflected the queen!

Next came Qh7+ and now you understand why the queen was deflected as Rg7 fails to Nxf8 with a completely winning position!

Interview with Stany GA on why he decided to play a norm tournament in India after three years, and his excellent combination in round one!

g4!? Deepan had just returned from the Inter Railway championship and had played 14 games before this one. He hadn't slept the night before and just wanted to play something that would keep him awake! g4!? it was.

Deepan explains his innovation!

Results of round one:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	Club/City	No.
1	1	GM	Kravtsiv Martyn	2654	UKR	0	1 - 0	0		Vaibhav Jayant Raut	1998	MAH	145
2	146		Potluri Saye Srreezza	1993	AP	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2615	TJK	2
3	3	GM	Predke Alexandr	2615	RUS	0	1 - 0	0		Ilamparthi A R	1984	TN	147
4	148		Aditya Guhagarkar	1982	MAH	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Popov Ivan	2611	RUS	4
5	5	GM	Idani Pouya	2588	IRI	0	1 - 0	0	AGM	Sa Kannan	1977	TN	149
6	150		Himanshu Ranjan	1970	BIH	0	½ - ½	0	GM	Tukhaev Adam	2556	UKR	6
7	7	GM	Malakhatko Vadim	2552	BEL	0	1 - 0	0		Pimpalkhare Vedant	1968	MAH	151
8	152		Mushini Ajay	1966	AP	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Bernadskiy Vitaliy	2547	UKR	8
9	9	GM	Ter-Sahakyan Samvel	2547	ARM	0	1 - 0	0		Thaga Sheriff M	1963	TN	153
10	154		Manish Anto Cristiano F	1961	TN	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Sivuk Vitaly	2545	UKR	10
11	11	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2540	TN	0	1 - 0	0		Manish Kumar (2006)	1961	ODI	155
12	156	AGM	Rathneesh R	1957	TN	0	0 - 1	0	IM	Karthik Venkataraman	2525	AP	12
13	13	IM	Stany G.A.	2502	KAR	0	1 - 0	0		Prajesh R	1953	TN	157
14	158	WFM	Bidhar Rutumbara	1948	ODI	0	0 - 1	0	GM	Anurag Mhamal	2495	GOA	14
15	15	GM	Neverov Valeriy	2488	UKR	0	1 - 0	0		Pradeep Tiwari	1947	DASCB	159

Adam Tukhaev was held to a draw in the first round by Himanshu Ranjan | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Another upset of the day was young Tanmay Chopra holding GM Levon Babujian to a draw

GM Ivan Popov is one of the favourites to win this tournament | Photo: Amruta Mokal

A few Iranians had planned to come to the tournament, but cancelled a the last moment. This left the only GM from Iran Pouya Idani, who is taking part. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Alexandr Predke had a tough first round opponent in the form of Ilamparthi AR. Our readers will remember that Ilamparthi recently won the under-9 national championship with a score of 10.0/10, before losing the last round. However, Predke didn't have too many difficulties beating his opponent. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Vitaliy Bernadskiy is a young Ukrainian GM who would be looking to win the Goa GM 2018 | Photo: Amruta Mokal

It's always nice to see players like DV Prasad who were best players of India in the their prime, make a comeback to the game! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The organizers have done a great job of arranging not just free tea and biscuits (as shown above), but also free lunch and dinner for the participants! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The first GM of Goa Anurag Mhamal will be able to play only five rounds as he will be leaving for the Isle of Man event | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Group B:

For the players in the group B, the tournament is extremely difficult. Having a large prize fund (the first prize is Rs.1,40,000) at stake is always very stressful. At the same time they have to play three rounds in a day which is not at all easy.

Top seed Arun Rathi (left) takes on Rituraj Burgohain | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Arun Rathi with a rating of 1994 is the top seed in the B group and is currently on 3.0/3 | Photo: Niklesh Jain

On the second Nirgun Keval (right) drew his game against Thounaojam Gobin Luwang | Photo: Niklesh Jain

So many little kids battling it out at the Goa GM open 2018 and trying to become stronger players! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Standings after round three:

Rk.	SNo	Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	K	rtg+/-
1	75	Shiva S		IND	1731	Kar	3,0	0,0	4,0	6,0	6,00	3	20	12,0
2	1	Arun Rathi		IND	1994	HAR***	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3	20	7,0
	13	Vijay Kumar		IND	1915	HP***	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3	20	9,2
	17	Raghavendra V.		IND	1900	Kar	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3	20	9,6
	30	Dhanush Ragav		IND	1864	T N*	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3	40	20,8
	32	Kadav Omkar		IND	1859	Mah*	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3	20	10,6
	41	Nayak Sanjeeban		IND	1821	Ori	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,5	5,50	3	20	11,4
8	12	Shubham		IND	1920	DEL***	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	20	9,0
	20	Nikhil M		IND	1891	AP***	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	20	9,6
	23	Badavath Anand		IND	1874	A P	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	20	10,0
	44	Gokulraj K		IND	1810	T N ( N P)	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	40	22,8
	45	Karthik Gopal G		IND	1810	A P ( AICF)	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	20	11,6
	48	Niranjan Mocharla		IND	1805	AP***	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	20	11,2
	59	Inamdar Sameer		IND	1778	Mah	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	40	24,4
	69	Abhinessh S		IND	1750	TN	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	40	24,4
	72	Sahil Dhawan		IND	1740	Har	3,0	0,0	4,0	5,0	5,00	3	20	10,0
17	64	Mansoor C M		IND	1764	Ker	3,0	0,0	3,5	5,0	5,00	3	20	10,6
18	73	Ranjith R.K.		IND	1736	T N	3,0	0,0	3,5	4,5	4,50	3	20	12,8
	77	Chavan Nameet		IND	1726	Mah*	3,0	0,0	3,5	4,5	4,50	3	40	21,2
20	128	Pushpendra		IND	1631	Del( AICF)	3,0	0,0	3,5	4,0	4,00	3	20	32,4

Opening ceremony:

The opening ceremony was held prior to the first round at 2 p.m. on 13th of October 2018.

Martyn Kravtsiv makes the opening move against Nilesh Cabral, the Power Minister of the state | Photo: Niklesh Jain

The pride of Goa Bhakti Kulkarni is honoured! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

An excellent Goan dance trying to balance the lamps on their head at the opening ceremony

Speech by Tournament director and Secretary of Goa Chess Association Kishor Bandekar speaks to the August gathering

Nothing is possible without the team of enthusiastic volunteers who are putting in their day and night to make this tournament a success!

On 14th of October, we will witness two rounds in the A-group and three rounds in the B-group. You can watch all the action live here:

Live Games from the 1st Goa GM open 2018

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