Chess Super League R5: Krazy Knights, Quintessential Queens Knocked Out
Pivotal Pawns, Kingslayers, Brutal Bishops, and Ruthless Rooks are the four teams that have advanced to the semifinals of the Chess Super League that will be played on Saturday. The two teams that were knocked out in the round-robin phase are Krazy Knights and Quintessential Queens.
The games of the Chess Super League can be found here as part of our live events platform.
Kingslayers vs. Quintessential Queens: 3-3
| Bo. | Fed | 3 | Kingslayers | Rtg | 3 - 3 | Fed | 6 | Quintessential Queens | Rtg |
| 1.1 | GM | Sethuraman, S.P. | 2620 | ½ - ½ | GM | Karjakin, Sergey | 2743 | ||
| 1.2 | GM | Giri, Anish | 2774 | ½ - ½ | GM | Koneru, Humpy | 2586 | ||
| 1.3 | GM | Dzagnidze, Nana | 2524 | 0 - 1 | GM | Hou, Yifan | 2658 | ||
| 1.4 | IM | Soumya, Swaminathan | 2351 | 1 - 0 | IM | Tania, Sachdev | 2392 | ||
| 1.5 | GM | Gukesh, D | 2640 | 1 - 0 | GM | Iniyan, P | 2529 | ||
| 1.6 | WIM | Arpita, Mukherjee | 2229 | 0 - 1 | WIM | Priyanka, K | 2218 |
The Kingslayers temporarily reached the top of the standings after their 3-3 tie with the Quintessential Queens, who were already out of contention. Interestingly, both lower-rated Indian players held the draw against their world-class opponents after the Kingslayers had chosen to swap their top boards.
GM Gukesh D. scored a nice win against GM Iniyan P., who tried the Volga/Benko Gambit:
Brutal Bishops vs. Ruthless Rooks: 3-3
| Bo. | Fed | 4 | Brutal Bishops | Rtg | 3 - 3 | Fed | 2 | Ruthless Rooks | Rtg |
| 2.1 | GM | Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2726 | ½ - ½ | GM | Radjabov, Teimour | 2763 | ||
| 2.2 | GM | Wang, Hao | 2744 | 1 - 0 | GM | Karthikeyan, Murali | 2630 | ||
| 2.3 | GM | Kosteniuk, Alexandra | 2518 | 0 - 1 | GM | Muzychuk, Anna | 2533 | ||
| 2.4 | IM | Karavade, Eesha | 2345 | 0 - 1 | GM | Harika, Dronavalli | 2511 | ||
| 2.5 | GM | Sadhwani, Raunak | 2555 | 1 - 0 | IM | Raja, Harshit | 2494 | ||
| 2.6 | WFM | Tarini, Goyal | 2164 | ½ - ½ | WFM | Salonika, Saina | 2206 |
The Brutal Bishops and the Ruthless Rooks ended in third and fourth places after a 3-3 tie in this match as well. Also here, there was a swap on the top boards, and it worked out well for the Bishops: GM Vidit Gujrathi held GM Teimour Radjabov to a draw, and GM Wang Hao beat GM Murali Karthikeyan. White's pawn grab on b4 didn't give him much fun in this game:
Pivotal Pawns vs. Krazy Knights: 4-2
| Bo. | Fed | 5 | Pivotal Pawns | Rtg | 4 - 2 | Fed | 1 | Krazy Knights | Rtg |
| 3.1 | GM | Gupta, Abhijeet | 2628 | 1 - 0 | GM | Nakamura, Hikaru | 2736 | ||
| 3.2 | GM | Ding, Liren | 2799 | 1 - 0 | GM | Sasikiran, Krishnan | 2640 | ||
| 3.3 | IM | Kulkarni, Bhakti | 2388 | 0 - 1 | GM | Muzychuk, Mariya | 2536 | ||
| 3.4 | GM | Abdumalik, Zhansaya | 2507 | 1 - 0 | WGM | Gomes, Mary Ann | 2354 | ||
| 3.5 | GM | Arjun, Kalyan | 2537 | 0 - 1 | GM | Aryan, Chopra | 2585 | ||
| 3.6 | WIM | Savitha, Shri B | 2281 | 1 - 0 | WIM | Mrudul, Dehankar | 2256 |
With a win in the final round, the Pivotal Pawns ended up in first place on board points. After the triple draw drama the other day, the fifth round also saw one game where the arbiter had to step in. It involved GM Hikaru Nakamura's game, whose win was turned into a loss! Let's first look at it as there were some nice tactics involved:
The match ended in 3-3 initially but was later turned into 4-2 with a loss for Nakamura. What had happened?
According to commentator IM Sagar Shah, who spoke with the arbiter, Nakamura had a phone yjsy rang during the game: "He put it on the side, he cut it [off], but the rulebook says you cannot have any electronic gadget around you, which is the reason why as per the regulations he was given a loss."
Round 5 Standings
| Rk. | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | MP | BP |
| 1 | Pivotal Pawns | 2½ | 3 | 3½ | 4 | 4 | 7 | 17,0 | |
| 2 | The Kingslayers | 3½ | 1½ | 3½ | 4 | 3 | 7 | 15,5 | |
| 3 | Brutal Bishops | 3 | 4½ | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 15,5 | |
| 4 | Ruthless Rooks | 2½ | 2½ | 3 | 4 | 3½ | 5 | 15,5 | |
| 5 | Krazy Knights | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 14,0 | |
| 6 | Quintessential Queens | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2½ | 2 | 2 | 12,5 |
All games day 5
The Chess Super League will continue with the playoff and finals on Saturday and Sunday. The games are played with a time control of 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment. The total prize fund of the event is Rs.40 lakh (U.S. $54,000).
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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