Krishna Teja scores his maiden GM norm with a round to spare at Sunway Sitges 2018

by Sagar Shah - 22/12/2018

Sunway Sitges has turned out to be an amazing event for a lad from Andhra Pradesh - IM Krishna Teja. Rated just 2340, he had already beaten big names like Beliavksy and Vincent Keymer. In round 8 he scalped another big fish when he got the better of GM Nihal Sarin. It was a street fight where Krishna Teja was worse out of the opening but did not give up. Nihal tried hard to create some imbalance in the position, and Krishna managed to play sublimely in the endgame to get the full point. With this performance he made a GM norm with one round to spare. In this article we tell how GM norms are calculated and also show you a brilliant position from the game of Soumya Swaminathan.

Krishna Teja has scored 6.0/8 and with his last round win over Nihal Sarin, has scored his maiden GM norm | Photo: Rupali Mullick

Let's have a look at how Krishna was able to beat Nihal:

Already out of the opening, Black was clearly better with the bishop pair

...Rxc3 by Nihal was not a bad move, but it was not required, especially because Black had many different way to strengthen the position

A few moves later Krishna Teja returned the favour!

Nihal's final mistake was ...Qxb5 exchanging the queens which gave White a risk free edge. Instead Black should have played ...Qa7!

The knight was clearly superior to the bishop. As you can see the bishop was cornered and trapped on a3

Krishna Teja interviewed by Rupali Mullick after his win over Nihal Sarin

How to find out if a player has scored a GM norm:

Step 1: Open FIDE Handbook - click on International title regulations and then regulations effective from 1st of July 2017. Now go to the table where it is shown how many points need to be scored at a particular rating average to make a GM norm in 9 rounds.

This is the table for 9 rounds with four columns of GM, IM, WGM and WIM norm

Step 2:

Find out the rating average of the opponents. This can be done from Chess-results website. Mind you, for GM norm, you should upgrade one of the players rating to 2200.

If you changed the first opponent of Krishna Teja to 2200 and then took the average of all nine opponents, you will find that it comes to 2474.55

As you can see if the rating average of the opponents is 2475-2519, then six points is enough for a GM norm. As Krishna's rating average if 2474.55, it will be rounded off to 2475 and hence six points are enough for the GM norm! What a close shave!

On other boards Indians didn't have a great day. Overnight leader Sasikiran lost his game to top seed Dmitry Andreikin, Pragg drew his game and moves to 5.5/8, Raunak Sadhwani's GM norm chances came to an end after he lost the game. Gukesh drew his game against Jamie Santos Latasa and has to compulsorily score 2.0/2 to have any chances of making his third norm. This might not even be enough if he doesn't get an extremely higher rated opponent in the tenth round. It seems as if Karjakin's record of youngest GM ever will stand.

Soumya drew her eighth round against Justin Sarkar, but she got a position that was good enough for her to tweet about it, which is very rare! | Photo: Rupali Mullick

White to play and win. Beautiful Combination from my game today - I found only half of it over the board and drew instead. Can you find the win ? :) pic.twitter.com/Xc4THI9EUP
— Soumya Swaminathan (@soumeow213) December 21, 2018

Solution:

Performance of Indian players

SNo		Name	RtgI	RtgN	FED	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Pts.	Rk.	Rp	Group
4	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	2673	0	IND	1	1	1	½	½	1	1	0		6,0	5	2686	Group A
16	GM	Nihal Sarin	2576	0	IND	1	1	1	1	½	½	0	0		5,0	27	2571	Group A
25	GM	Praggnanandhaa R	2530	0	IND	½	1	1	1	½	½	½	½		5,5	22	2552	Group A
35	IM	Gukesh D	2466	0	IND	1	1	0	1	½	0	1	½		5,0	32	2535	Group A
41	IM	Sadhwani Raunak	2434	0	IND	1	1	1	0	1	0	½	0		4,5	47	2503	Group A
42	WGM	Soumya Swaminathan	2428	0	IND	1	1	0	½	1	0	½	½		4,5	55	2377	Group A
45	IM	Vardaan Nagpal	2415	0	IND	½	½	½	½	1	0	½	½		4,0	97	2144	Group A
46	IM	Raja Rithvik R	2415	0	IND	1	1	½	0	½	½	1	½		5,0	36	2364	Group A
48	IM	Arjun Kalyan	2406	0	IND	1	1	0	0	½	½	½	1		4,5	71	2177	Group A
49	CM	Rohith Krishna S	2399	0	IND	1	0	0	1	1	½	½	½		4,5	66	2297	Group A
59	IM	Roy Prantik	2382	0	IND	1	½	0	1	0	½	1	½		4,5	54	2392	Group A
68	IM	Krishna Teja N	2340	0	IND	1	0	1	1	½	1	½	1		6,0	11	2621	Group A
73	WGM	Vaishali R	2329	0	IND	1	1	0	0	1	½	0	½		4,0	76	2347	Group A
74	IM	Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad	2328	0	IND	1	0	1	0	1	0	1	½		4,5	65	2296	Group A
81	WIM	Priyanka Nutakki	2293	0	IND	1	½	0	1	0	½	½	½		4,0	83	2147	Group A
85	CM	Mullick Raahil	2276	0	IND	1	0	1	0	1	1	0	0		4,0	80	2231	Group A
86	FM	Pranav Anand	2274	0	IND	1	0	1	½	1	½	0	½		4,5	51	2343	Group A
90		Sreeshwan Maralakshikari	2244	0	IND	1	0	1	½	½	0	½	1		4,5	52	2392	Group A
95	CM	Bharath Subramaniyam H	2234	0	IND	0	1	1	1	½	½	0	½		4,5	53	2385	Group A
96		Moksh Amit Doshi	2233	0	IND	0	1	1	½	½	½	0	0		3,5	103	2275	Group A
106		Alok Sinha	2187	0	IND	0	1	0	1	0	1	0	0		3,0	129	2154	Group A
108		Natarajan C	2177	0	IND	0	1	½	0	0	½	1	1		4,0	100	2200	Group A
115	CM	Dev Shah	2159	0	IND	0	0	1	½	0	½	1	½		3,5	124	1961	Group A
116		Manu David Suthandram R	2153	0	IND	½	½	½	0	1	½	½	½		4,0	81	2329	Group A
120		Ajay Karthikeyan	2143	0	IND	0	1	½	½	1	½	0	1		4,5	68	2347	Group A
121		Rakshitta Ravi	2141	0	IND	0	½	½	½	0	1	½	½		3,5	118	1927	Group A
139	WFM	Cholleti Sahajasri	2069	0	IND	½	½	0	0	1	½	½	1		4,0	84	2235	Group A
148		Shyam Prasad Reddy K	2030	0	IND	0	1	0	½	1	1	0	0		3,5	109	2286	Group A
160		Aarav Dengla	1955	0	IND	0	0	½	½	0	1	0	½		2,5	156	1998	Group A
164		Mahitosh Dey	1931	0	IND	0	1	½	½	½	0	½	½		3,5	116	2155	Group A
167		Arjun C Krishnamachari	1895	0	IND	0	1	0	½	½	½	½	½		3,5	122	2144	Group A
177		Ilamparthi A R	1796	0	IND	½	0	1	0	1	0	½	1		4,0	95	2224	Group A
179	AGM	Vignesh B	1740	0	IND	0	½	½	0	1	½	½	1		4,0	101	2140	Group A

Standings after round 8

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	sex	Gr	FED	RtgI	RtgN	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	Rp
1	27	GM	Alonso Rosell Alvar			2550	ESP	2524	2514	C.E. Gerunda	6,5	39,0	42,0	32,5	2767
2	1	GM	Andreikin Dmitry				RUS	2719	0		6,5	38,0	41,5	29,5	2756
3	2	GM	Ivanchuk Vassily				UKR	2717	0		6,5	34,0	37,5	25,0	2595
4	17	GM	Petrosyan Manuel				ARM	2565	0		6,0	39,0	42,0	31,5	2692
5	4	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan				IND	2673	0	Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd	6,0	38,5	42,0	30,5	2686
6	26	IM	Harutyunian Tigran K.				ARM	2528	0		6,0	37,5	41,0	28,5	2651
7	3	GM	Inarkiev Ernesto				RUS	2693	0		6,0	36,0	40,0	26,5	2625
8	8	GM	Indjic Aleksandar				SRB	2620	0		6,0	36,0	39,5	29,5	2662
9	5	GM	Edouard Romain				FRA	2644	2614	Club de Ajedrez Sestao	6,0	36,0	39,0	28,0	2661
10	12	GM	Liang Awonder	H16			USA	2589	0	Wisconsin	6,0	35,5	40,0	28,0	2648
11	68	IM	Krishna Teja N	A			IND	2340	0		6,0	35,0	37,5	26,0	2621
12	32	IM	Sosa Tomas				ARG	2488	2451		6,0	32,5	36,0	26,0	2551
13	15	GM	Lopez Martinez Josep Manuel				ESP	2580	2581		5,5	37,5	40,5	29,0	2626
14	11	GM	Romanov Evgeny				RUS	2614	0		5,5	37,0	40,5	28,0	2560
15	28	GM	Santos Ruiz Miguel				ESP	2523	2506	And	5,5	37,0	40,5	27,0	2574
16	6	GM	Vocaturo Daniele				ITA	2629	2622		5,5	37,0	40,0	28,0	2589
17	19	GM	Kulaots Kaido	H			EST	2555	0		5,5	37,0	40,0	27,5	2598
18	7	GM	Adly Ahmed				EGY	2626	0		5,5	36,5	41,0	27,5	2599
19	34	GM	Dragnev Valentin	H			AUT	2483	0		5,5	36,5	39,5	26,5	2619

Follow the games live at 9 p.m. IST:

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