2018 rated player gets a winning position in 14 moves against 2692 GM and....

by Sagar Shah - 25/03/2019

This happened in the third round of the Sharjah Masters 2019. Sri Sai Baswanth (2018) hails from Andhra Pradesh. He was up against one of the strongest GMs at the event Maxim Matlakov from Russia (2692). With a rating difference of 674 Elo points very little was expected from Baswanth. He played the London System and with one strong move after another built up a winning position in just 14 moves. Matlakov was completely off colour. It seemed as if this would be the biggest upset of the entire event, when something unusual happened. What exactly? Read on to find out.

The Sharjah Masters 2019 has a rating cut off of 1500 Elo, which means all players above the rating of 1500 can participate in the tournament. With the first prize being $15,000 (roughly Rs.10,37,000) it is an excellent event for the best GMs in the world to come and fight for the money. Thanks to the 1500 Elo rating cut off and high prize money, you can witness pairings with huge rating difference in the initial rounds. This is what happened in the third round.

Sri Sai Baswanth (2018) from Andhra Pradesh, India, was pitted against GM Maxim Matlakov (2692) from Russia

It's true that Sri Sai Baswanth had the white pieces, but at the same time with a rating difference of 674 Elo points very little was expected of him. One might remember that at the Bhopal GM Open 2018 which took place in December, Baswanth was able to beat the top seed of the tournament Aleksandrov Aleksej (2544) in the first round. However, there is a big difference between Aleksandrov and Matlakov. While there is no doubt that Aleksandrov is a strong GM, he no longer works hard on his chess. He relies upon his superior middlegame and endgame skills to outplay his opponents. Baswanth managed to catch his opponent in the opening and finished off the game with precision. When it comes to Matlakov, he is one of the rising stars of Russian chess. Along with Artemiev and Dubov, he is dubbed as the next big thing from Russian chess. To catch him unprepared in the opening would not be an easy task. But Baswanth managed to do just that! How did he do it? Let's have a look.

Sri Sai Baswanth vs Maxim Matlakov

Baswanth opened the game with 2.Bf4 in th London System

His queen move to b3 was met with ...Qc8 by Matlakov

The move c4 is not in the spirit of the London, but a very plausible move in the position. While there are other moves in the position as well, c4 had the psychological effect of throwing Matlakov off balance

...Bb4 was clearly an error as Baswanth took the bishop on f5 and then the free pawn on d5

It seems Matlakov was banking on this move ...Qd7 to get him out of problems. He simply missed that his opponent could...

0-0-0! White is simply winning now. After ...Qxd5 Baswanth made the right move Nc4! and after Qe6...

White executed another powerful move Bd6! Black's king is stuck in the centre, the bishop on b4 is hanging, the pawn on b7 is soft. It looks like Black's days are numbered.

But after making his move 14.Bd6, Baswanth made the only wrong move of the game - he offered a draw! Matlakov grabbed this opportunity with both his hands. The Russian super GM realized that there was no way in which he could save his position. For Baswanth, a draw against 2692 opponent, is a fantastic result. However, at the same time, if he would have shown a little more courage and played on, he could have very well scored the biggest upset of his chess career and also the Sharjah Masters 2019. Baswanth's decision reminds me of Tartakower's famous quote - "No one ever won a game by resigning!" Just that resigning in this case has to be replaced by "offering a draw".

The London System is a powerful opening which is solid, but at the same time has a lot of scope for creativity. You may want to learn this opening from our best selling "London System with 2.Bf4" by GM Simon Williams.

Simon Williams is an aggressive player. He suggest lines which are active with a good mix of theoretical lines, traps and instructive games. Check out the product in the ChessBase India shop

After three rounds at the Sharjah Masters 2019, we have only five players with a 100% score and one of them is GM Nihal Sarin | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Nihal Sarin vs El Adnani

Black has just played his pawn to b6. How did Nihal respond?

When your opponent's king is in the centre, it makes sense to open up the position, even at the cost of material. Hence, Nihal rightly played the move f4! The point being that after Nxf4 Rxf4 exf4 e5! White is crashing through with his two knights, queen and rook on a1 that will join the game via e1. El Adnani rejected the pawn after f4 but his position was already in a mess.

Nihal opening with game against El Adnani with 1.e4 | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Vignesh held Abhijeet Gupta to a draw. Rated 2476, Vignesh is already gaining 4.8 Elo points in this event. If he can get the remaining 20 Elo, he would be India's latest GM, as he has already scored all his three GM norms | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Venkatesh could not stop GM Le Quang Liem on the top board | Photo: Niklesh Jain

India's highest rated player in the event Surya Sekhar Ganguly was held to a draw by Shahin Lorparizangeneh | Photo: Niklesh Jain

After a draw in the first round, Gukesh is back with two back to back wins and is now on 2.5/3 | Photo: Niklesh Jain

GM Sandipan Chanda is on 2.5/3 | Photo: Niklesh Jain

"Are you going to make another Facebook post on mothers?" Kusum, mother of Aditya Mittal seems to say to the camera! | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Yesterday, ChessBase India published a post on Facebook, which struck a chord with the chess community, especially the mothers:

The beautiful structure of the Sharjah chess club | Photo: Niklesh Jain

An aerial view of the playing hall with the artistic carpet | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Adly Ahmed preparing for his game with Zero to One by Peter Thiel | Photo: Niklesh Jain

In the game Adly was able to get from "zero to one" point by beat talented Indian youngster Leon Mendonca | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Standings after round 3

Complete standings

Overview of performance by Indian players

SNo		Name	Rtg	RtgI	FED	1	2	3	Pts.	Rk.	K	rtg+/-
13	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2633	2633	IND	1	1	½	2,5	8	10	0,80
17	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2602	2602	IND	1	1	½	2,5	11	10	1,30
19	GM	Nihal Sarin	2578	2578	IND	1	1	1	3,0	5	10	6,40
23	GM	Chanda Sandipan	2534	2534	IND	1	1	½	2,5	26	10	2,00
24	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2534	2534	IND	1	½	½	2,0	46	10	-3,60
25	GM	Debashis Das	2532	2532	IND	1	1	½	2,5	18	10	0,20
26	IM	Gukesh D	2529	2529	IND	½	1	1	2,5	30	10	-0,20
28	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2524	2524	IND	1	1	½	2,5	19	10	-0,30
30	GM	Venkatesh M.R.	2517	2517	IND	1	1	0	2,0	37	10	0,60
31	GM	Stany G.A.	2507	2507	IND	1	1	½	2,5	20	10	5,50
35	GM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2497	2497	IND	½	½	1	2,0	77	10	-6,80
36	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2494	2494	IND	1	1	0	2,0	38	10	0,00
39	IM	Iniyan P	2487	2487	IND	1	1	½	2,5	17	10	4,10
42	IM	Vignesh N R	2476	2476	IND	1	1	½	2,5	16	10	4,80
45	IM	Sadhwani Raunak	2455	2455	IND	1	0	1	2,0	55	10	-5,00
46	CM	Aditya Mittal	2454	2454	IND	1	1	0	2,0	41	10	-0,70
47	CM	Mendonca Leon Luke	2446	2446	IND	1	½	0	1,5	83	10	1,30
50	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2429	2429	IND	1	0	½	1,5	87	10	-3,70
51	GM	Laxman R.R.	2425	2425	IND	1	0	1	2,0	50	10	1,00
53	IM	Raja Rithvik R	2423	2423	IND	1	0	1	2,0	51	10	0,60
55	IM	Akshat Khamparia	2415	2415	IND	½	1	0	1,5	92	10	-4,90
56	GM	Sundararajan Kidambi	2413	2413	IND	1	½	0	1,5	81	10	1,90
57	IM	Akash G	2411	2411	IND	1	0	1	2,0	45	10	0,40
58	IM	Nitin S.	2408	2408	IND	1	½	0	1,5	78	10	0,90
62		Saurabh Anand	2385	2385	IND	1	0	1	2,0	53	20	0,20
63	IM	Dhulipalla Bala Chandra Prasad	2384	2384	IND	1	½	½	2,0	42	20	10,80
67	IM	Rathnakaran K.	2361	2361	IND	1	0	1	2,0	47	10	-0,10
68	IM	Fenil Shah	2360	2360	IND	1	0	0	1,0	111	10	-10,80
69	FM	Pranav Anand	2359	2359	IND	½	1	0	1,5	96	20	-12,20
71	IM	Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari	2352	2352	IND	1	½	½	2,0	48	10	5,30
72	IM	Sidhant Mohapatra	2348	2348	IND	1	½	0	1,5	84	10	0,20
73	FM	Shailesh Dravid	2316	2316	IND	1	0	1	2,0	64	20	1,00
74	CM	Bharath Subramaniyam H	2301	2301	IND	1	0	1	2,0	58	20	-0,20
75		Ajay Karthikeyan	2298	2298	IND	1	0	1	2,0	72	40	0,40
76	WIM	Priyanka Nutakki	2297	2297	IND	1	0	1	2,0	62	40	-0,80
78	IM	Sharma Dinesh K.	2286	2286	IND	1	½	0	1,5	85	10	1,60
80	IM	Ravi Thandalam Shanmugam	2276	2276	IND	½	0	1	1,5	101	10	-10,90
82	CM	Mullick Raahil	2275	2275	IND	1	0	1	2,0	67	40	-0,40
84	WIM	Divya Deshmukh	2266	2266	IND	1	0	1	2,0	68	40	-0,80
86		Kunal M.	2258	2258	IND	1	1	½	2,5	22	20	23,80
87		Pranav V	2258	2258	IND	1	0	1	2,0	74	20	-1,80
88	IM	Praveen Kumar C	2243	2243	IND	1	1	½	2,5	23	10	11,90
91	FM	Jeet Jain	2219	2219	IND	0	1	1	2,0	61	20	3,40
93		Panda Sambit	2218	2218	IND	0	1	½	1,5	86	40	19,60
95	FM	Srihari L R	2211	2211	IND	0	1	0	1,0	105	20	-2,40
101	IM	Gokhale Chandrashekhar	2185	2185	IND	0	0	1	1,0	126	10	-8,80
103		Gandhi Anish	2156	2156	IND	0	0	1	1,0	139	20	-17,40
106		Jaeel Atharva	2145	2145	IND	0	1	0	1,0	109	40	-6,40
110		Thrish Karthik	2096	2096	IND	½	½	0	1,0	104	40	27,20
111		Shiva Pavan Teja Sharma U	2093	2093	IND	0	½	1	1,5	97	20	-8,00
114	WCM	Mrudul Dehankar	2078	2078	IND	0	1	0	1,0	116	40	-6,40
115	WFM	Bommini Mounika Akshaya	2076	2076	IND	½	0	1	1,5	89	40	16,80
116		Kumar Gaurav	2074	2074	IND	0	1	0	1,0	114	20	-4,00
119		Shanya Mishra	2026	2026	IND	0	1	1	2,0	70	40	35,20
121		Sri Sai Baswanth P	2018	2018	IND	½	1	½	2,0	49	20	33,20
122	CM	Shahil Dey	2007	2007	IND	0	1	0	1,0	115	40	-6,00
123	WFM	Sanskriti Goyal	2006	2006	IND	0	0	1	1,0	140	40	-36,80
124		Mohammed Dilshad	2006	2006	IND	½	0	1	1,5	90	20	8,40
125		Krithigga K	2002	2002	IND	0	1	1	2,0	71	40	36,00
126		Niklesh Kumar Jain	1995	1995	IND	0	1	0	1,0	119	20	-3,00
127	WIM	Gokhale Anupama	1994	1994	IND	0	1	0	1,0	118	20	-2,00
128		Parthasarathy R	1989	1989	IND	0	1	0	1,0	120	20	-3,20
132		Anilkumar O.T.	1975	1975	IND	0	1	0	1,0	121	20	-2,60
133		Mota Pankit	1974	1974	IND	½	0	0	0,5	160	20	3,60
138	WCM	Isha Sharma	1935	1935	IND	0	1	0	1,0	134	20	12,80
139		Rakshith Srinivasan	1923	1923	IND	0	0	1	1,0	138	40	-6,00
141		Souradip Deb	1899	1899	IND	0	0	1	1,0	142	20	-2,80
142		Gokhale Rishabh Chandrashekhar	1895	1895	IND	0	½	½	1,0	124	40	24,00
144		Abid Ali Mujawar	1869	1869	IND	0	0	1	1,0	149	20	-2,40
145		Rohit S	1868	1868	IND	½	0	1	1,5	99	40	46,80
146	WFM	Meghna C H	1863	1863	IND	0	0	1	1,0	150	20	-2,60
147	WFM	Dhyana Patel	1848	1848	IND	0	1	0	1,0	122	40	28,80
148		Jinan Jomon	1848	1848	IND	0	1	1	2,0	76	40	31,60
150		Varsha Ramesh	1831	1831	IND	0	½	0	0,5	155	40	8,00
151	AIM	Kaushik G Iyer	1771	1771	IND	0	0	1	1,0	146	40	-3,60
153	AIM	Sidharth Balaji Sridharan	1732	1732	IND	0	½	0	0,5	156	40	9,60
155		Devnani Kush	1650	1650	IND	0	1	0	1,0	125	40	30,40
156		Aagam Aditya E	1649	1649	IND	0	0	½	0,5	165	40	10,40
157		Antony Jesumarian Leslie	1621	1621	IND	0	½	0	0,5	154	40	10,40
159		Singh Gurmeher	1589	1589	IND	0	0	0	0,0	170	40	-9,60
162		Rebecca Jesumarian	1561	1561	IND	0	0	0	0,0	172	40	-9,60
167	AIM	Vishal Choudary B	1519	1519	IND	0	0	½	0,5	164	40	10,40
168		Harikrishnan C	1514	1514	IND	0	0	0	0,0	167	40	-9,60
169		Sharon Rafael	1474	1474	IND	½	0	0	0,5	161	40	10,40

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