Commonwealth Chess: Five leaders after five rounds

by Jitendra Choudhary - 07/07/2017

Thursday was a double round at the Commonwealth Championships currently taking place in Delhi. We are now past the halfway mark in the tournament and we have five leaders with a score of 4.5/5. They are local lads Vaibhav Suri and Abhijeet Gupta, Aravindh Chithambaram, Swapnil Dhopade and Tejas Bakre. As the last four rounds of the tournament remain we are in for an exciting finish as apart from the GMs we also have two women players Bhakti Kulkarni and Swati Ghate who are in the top ten places right now. Report from Delhi.

Ankit Rajpara is usually very solid with the white pieces, and he got a fine position out of the opening, but...

...Abhijeet Gupta slowly and steadily managed to outplay him. With two wins in rounds four and five, the top seed is back in the lead.

Aravindh played a fine game in the morning to beat Nubairshah Shaikh. In the evening round he was facing the giant killer K. Priyanka. The GM from Chennai was able to win without too many difficulties.

It must be mentioned that with wins over Padmini Rout and CRG Krishna and a draw against Ankit Rajpara, Priyanka is already gaining 85 Elo points!

Tejas Bakre played a very strong game with the black pieces in the Rut Lopez and beat Sahaj Grover

Swapnil Dhopade and Vaibhav Suri drew their games on the top board and are on 4.5/5

GM Abhijit Kunte was able to beat the rising star Manindrakar Indrajeet

After beating Tania Sachdev earlier in the tournament, Bhagyashree Thipsay was unable to keep pace. She lost to WGM Mary Ann Gomes

Shardul Gagare playing showing great levels of stamina. He is 3.0/3 in the under-20 section and 4.0/5 in the open

Shardul's sister Shalmali Gagare is on 2.0/5

Tania Sachdev is unable to breakthrough and drew her game against Parnali Dharia

Talented youngster from Gujarat Naitik Mehta

The Dutch Leningrad. Can you guess the aggressive move made by Ziaur Rahman as white in this position? As GM Simon Williams would put, "It's time to push Harry down the board!"

Packaged drinking water provided to all players

Along with refreshments

The legendary player from Bangladesh Rani Hamid. She is currently on 1.5/5.

After staring with 0.5/2, GM Pravin Thipsay has made a comeback and is now on 3.5/5.

Arbiter and official Mr. R.S. Tiwari

Team of arbiters working around the clock, take some time off!

Results of Round 4:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2558	3	1 - 0	3	WGM	Swati Ghate	2278	31
2	5	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2517	3	1 - 0	3	WGM	Kulkarni Bhakti	2255	33
3	11	GM	Ankit R. Rajpara	2474	3	½ - ½	3		Priyanka K	2081	53
4	1	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2625	2½	1 - 0	2½	GM	Murshed Niaz	2399	18
5	2	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2593	2½	1 - 0	2½	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2392	20
6	21	IM	Sardana Rishi	2379	2½	½ - ½	2½	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2504	6
7	25	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	2331	2½	0 - 1	2½	GM	Grover Sahaj	2484	8
8	26	FM	Erigaisi Arjun	2324	2½	½ - ½	2½	GM	Mollah Abdullah Al Rakib	2480	10
9	12	GM	Gagare Shardul	2472	2½	½ - ½	2½		Aradhya Garg	2281	29
10	15	GM	Bakre Tejas	2449	2½	1 - 0	2½	WIM	Thipsay Bagyashree Sathe	2046	58

Complete results

Results of Round 5:

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	5	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2517	4	½ - ½	4	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2558	3
2	11	GM	Ankit R. Rajpara	2474	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2625	1
3	53		Priyanka K	2081	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2593	2
4	8	GM	Grover Sahaj	2484	3½	0 - 1	3½	GM	Bakre Tejas	2449	15
5	4	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2527	3	½ - ½	3	IM	Chakravarthi Reddy M	2227	35
6	6	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2504	3	1 - 0	3		Mahindrakar Indrajeet	2154	43
7	29		Aradhya Garg	2281	3	½ - ½	3	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2482	9
8	10	GM	Mollah Abdullah Al Rakib	2480	3	½ - ½	3		Pranavananda V	2102	51
9	30	IM	Praveen Kumar C	2280	3	0 - 1	3	GM	Gagare Shardul	2472	12
10	31	WGM	Swati Ghate	2278	3	1 - 0	3	IM	Sardana Rishi	2379	21

Rank after Round 5:

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2558	4,5	0,0	15,5	17,5
2	5	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	IND	2517	4,5	0,0	14,5	16,0
3	1	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2625	4,5	0,0	13,0	15,5
4	2	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2593	4,5	0,0	13,0	15,0
5	15	GM	Bakre Tejas	IND	2449	4,5	0,0	11,0	13,0
6	31	WGM	Swati Ghate	IND	2278	4,0	0,0	13,5	15,5
7	23	IM	Wohl Aleksandar H.	AUS	2355	4,0	0,0	13,0	14,5
8	33	WGM	Kulkarni Bhakti	IND	2255	4,0	0,0	13,0	14,0
9	12	GM	Gagare Shardul	IND	2472	4,0	0,0	12,5	15,0
10	6	GM	Kunte Abhijit	IND	2504	4,0	0,0	12,0	13,5

Complete Rankings

Round 4 on 2017/07/06 at 9.30 Hrs

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2625	4½		4½	GM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	2517	5
2	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2558	4½		4½	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2593	2
3	15	GM	Bakre Tejas	2449	4½		4	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2504	6
4	27	FM	Mitrabha Guha	2301	4		4	GM	Gagare Shardul	2472	12
5	33	WGM	Kulkarni Bhakti	2255	4		4	IM	Wohl Aleksandar H.	2355	23
6	4	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2527	3½		4	WGM	Swati Ghate	2278	31
7	18	GM	Murshed Niaz	2399	3½		3½	IM	Thejkumar M. S.	2491	7
8	8	GM	Grover Sahaj	2484	3½		3½	GM	Thipsay Praveen M	2419	16
9	9	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2482	3½		3½		Priyanka K	2081	53
10	25	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	2331	3½		3½	GM	Mollah Abdullah Al Rakib	2480	10

Complete pairings

Chess-results link of age categories:

U-8 Open (Ilamparthi in action)

U-8 Girls

U-10 Open

U-10 Girls (It is going to be a race between Savitha and Sahithi)

U-12 Open

U-12 Girls (Divya Deshmukh is a clear favourite)

U-20 Open (GM Shardul Gagare is the favourite)

U-20 Girls

Live games:

Following live games of the Commonwealth has been made very easy. You can now do it from the ChessBase India website by clicking on the link below. The games begin at 15.00 hours (except for double rounds on 6th of July). Apart from just watching the live games, you can also view the games of the previous rounds (and download them if you are a ChessBase Account Premium Member). There's also some light analysis of the games done by using the Tactical analysis feature.

Follow the games live by clicking on this link

Articles on Commonwealth 2017 on ChessBase India:

Commonwealth Chess Championships 2017 begin today

Live Games from Commonwealth 2017

Round one: Kumar Gaurav stuns GM Ziaur Rahman

Round two: A full blooded King's Indian fight

Round three: Women power prevails

About the author:

Jitendra Choudhary is a chess trainer in Delhi. He is from Madhya Pradesh, but shifted to Delhi to pursue his passion related to chess. He currently teaches students, works as an arbiter and would like to dedicate more time to being a chess journalist.