Dubai: The race for the $13,000 top prize has intensified as a large chunk of the highest-rated seeds dropped out of the leaderboard — but it was a suspected cheating incident by one of the tournament’s lowest-rated players that stole the limelight in Wednesday night’s third round of the 19th Dubai Open Chess Tournament–Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Al Maktoum Cup at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.
Sixth-seed Grandmaster (GM) Eduardo Iturrizaga of Venezuela, eighth-seed GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of India, 12th-seed GM Sandro Mareco of Argentina and 18th-seed GM Mustafa Yilmaz of Turkey are the only players among the top 20 seeds with perfect slates after their super-grandmaster peers yielded to upset losses and draws.
Completing the 10-player lead pack after three rounds are 22nd-seed GM Ahmed Adly of Egypt, 27th-seed GM Mikhail Antipov of Russia, 28th-seed Emre Can of Turkey, 32nd-seed GM Alexander Fier of Brazil, 34th-seed GM Alan Pichot of Argentina and 31st-seed International Master (IM) Jaime Santos Latasa of Spain.
GM Alexander Areshchenko, the second-seed from Ukraine, and GM David Anton Guijarro, the fourth-seed from Spain, lead a big group of 2.5-pointers after they were held to draws by 35th-seed GM Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan of India and IM Alireza Firouzja of Iran in the top two board match-ups.
Iturrizaga, the 2010 champion and Venezuelan number one player, had short work of GM Deepan Chakkravarthy of India after a masterful handling of the Catalan opening.
The Venezuelan punished Chakkravarthy’s aggressive pawn push to e5 on the ninth move, a central break that proved disastrous as it left the Indian’s king stuck in the centre.
After marshalling his heavy artillery in the centre of the board, Iturrizaga quickly launched a counteroffensive that forced Chakkravarthy to resign in just 21 moves.
11-year-old prodigy
Gujrathi engaged 11-year-old Indian prodigy Praggnanandhaa R. in one of the most exciting games of the tournament – a Ruy Lopez that quickly turned into a tactical slugfest wherein both players sacrificed material in a series of attacks and counterattacks.
Praggnanandhaa was able to smash Gujrathi’s kingside following an exchange sacrifice, but the youngster eventually lost the thread when he allowed Gujrathi to consolidate his position and launch a counterattack that forced Praggnanandhaa to give up more material. Gujrathi prevailed after 41 moves.
Defending champion GM Gawain Jones of the UK was among the biggest casualties of the round after he was outplayed by Pichot in another Ruy Lopez game.
Jones’ dubious queen sacrifice for a rook and a minor piece on the 26th move was soundly refuted by the Argentine, who took advantage of his extra queen to disrupt the coordination of Jones’ pieces and eventually pick up the win on the 50th move.
The tournament’s inaugural champion, GM Vladimir Akopian of Armenia, also lost after falling to an inspired game by Fier, who methodically dismantled Akopian’s classical line of the Caro-Kann defence to prevail in 42 moves.
Cheating attempt
However, the explosive board battles were overshadowed by an apparent cheating attempt involving a 21-year-old player from India.
Jeel Shah, who has an International Chess Federation (Fide) rating of 1764 and seeded 192nd out of 213 players in the tournament, caught the arbiters’ attention because of suspicious behaviour during his game against 14-year-old Dushyant Sharma, also of India.
After closely monitoring his actions, International Arbiter (IA) Mahdi Abdul Rahim, the tournament’s chief arbiter, summoned Shah to the arbiter’s office for an inspection, where he was found to be hiding a mobile phone under the sleeves of his shirt.
Shah refused to comply with the arbiters’ request to turn the phone on to check if it was being used to run a chess program, prompting tournament officials to expel the Indian player from the tournament.
As per Fide rules, mobile phones and other electronic devices are not allowed in the playing hall of a tournament.
Arab players
Adly is the only Arab player with a perfect score after his win over IM Karen Grigoryan of Turkmenistan, while his compatriot GM Bassem Amin dropped to 2.5 points following a draw with IM Johan Salomon of Norway.
The UAE’s number player, GM Salem AR Saleh, continued his march back to the top following an opening-round upset loss after beating Fide Master (FM) Joydeep Dutta for his second win in a row. FM Saeed Ishaq, the reigning UAE champion from Dubai, stayed on track in his quest to secure a GM norm after settling for a draw with GM Nijat Abasov of Azerbaijan.
Salem Ahmed Salem, on the other hand, pulled off one of the big wins for the UAE contingent after beating IM Irina Berezina of Australia.
Rest day and blitz
The tournament enters its fourth round on Thursday starting at 5:30pm, followed by a rest day on Friday. The fifth and sixth rounds of the nine-round Swiss system tournament will be played on Saturday at 10am and 6pm respectively.
The Dubai Open Blitz Tournament will be played Friday afternoon, offering a total cash purse of $4,000.
