After looking at some of the world’s top players, now let us now look at our Indian players and see how they fare. I have chosen Grandmasters Sasikiran, Harikrishna and Abhijeet Kunte. However one major thing I have realised from my research is that, previous results I have tabulated have no influence on these players. In open tourneys second half performance does not have that big an impact as we saw in the Round Robin events. You will see why in this final article. Furthermore I apologize as some of the games played in open events are not retrievable and poor Kunte I couldn’t input his result in Aeroflot 2007 and Sasi’s incredible performance in the Doha Asian Games which was way above 2800 because of my policy of not including team results. So I must admit the data might be a little short on Sasi and Kunte.
Nevertheless Sasi has played in the Capelle La Grande 2006, Aeroflot 2006, Sarajevo 2006, Aeroflot 2007 and in the Mtel master 2007. He has scored an impressive + 3 score in 25 games against an average rating of 2599 for a 2641 performance. Well you could say that is mediocre compared to his fantastic effort in Mtel 07. This data includes two performances 2700+ and two 2600 and below. However if we consider the two Round Robin events Sasi has scored a creditable 2650 performance. Now in the second half though, Sasi comes to life! With a +6 performance in 22 games against an average rating of 2628 which puts his overall performance onto 2754! This includes two performances 2800+ and the lowest being a 2652. Very impressive indeed! This is what propelled Sasi into tied first at Aeroflot 06, tied second in Capelle La Grande and a tied second in Mtel. However Sasi could have improved his stats by having finished better there. His dismal 0.5/3 finish lost cost him the title and rating points. Until round 7 he had a 1 point lead with a performance of 2838! Sasi has outscored his first half on 4 occasions and equalled once! Wow! That is a great finisher! I think he has the best second half record, thus far.
Harikrishna on the hand has played in Pamplona 05, Reykjavik 06, Paks 06, Aerosvit 06 and Aeroflot 07. Hari on the other hand has also done well in the first half scoring an impressive +5 in 25 games against an average rating of 2572 for a rating performance of 2653, which is presently 3 points above his rating. His 2794 start in Pamplona and a 2757 start in Paks were the key elements to this stat. However he has also started bad with a 2489 in Aeroflot and a 2590 in Iceland. So it is a mixed bag for Hari. In the second half Hari has scored an even score in 21 games against an average rating of 2621 for a 2626 performance. That looks pretty ordinary in one glance, however it can be explained by one 2479 performance. Aeroflot was a disaster for him which cost him 23 points. S it is difficult to jump to conclusions on Hari. Hari, being a friend of mine has usually performed very well with three category 16 wins in 2005. More time will be needed to see how good a finisher is he. Mind you he did pump in a 2746 performance in Iceland after a relatively slow start for tied first. He has outscored his first half only once but on two occasions he pretty much maintained the tempo to give him a top two finish in Paks and in Pamplona.
Once again before I analyse GM Kunte’s results I would like to remind viewers that due to unavailability in finding the games. Anyway the tournaments I have got to construct my analysis are Gibraltar 06, ONG cup, Commonwealth chess championship, Parsvanath 07 and National championship at Valsad. Kunte has scored a +13 in 27 games against an average of 2332 for a performance of 2509. Wait a second, if he has scored +13 why is the performance so low? Well this is why it is important to start brilliantly in open events, especially in India for a GM like Kunte as he is likely to play weaker opponents almost every single round. Due to the high number of entries it might take 3-4 rounds before you even play an IM. However to go back to our analysis Kunte has score only a mere +9 in 26 games in the second half against an average rating of 2392 for a performance of 2500. However this includes a remarkable 2737 performance in the commonwealth championship in Mumbai! However it does include below par performances of 2316 and 2375. Overall GM Kunte’s performance has deteriorated in the second half slightly. However he has outscored his 1st half results on two occasions.
Since this is the final part of the article, I would like to draw some conclusions and suggest possible solutions. In Round Robin events we have noticed that an average first half performance bettered in the second half performance increases your chances for an excellent placing. It is indeed very critical you perform well in the 2nd half. Leko is not a great finisher as proved by statistics and that is why he has been denied so many titles he deserves. However I believe 2nd half is not more important than the 1st in open events. This is because in open events if you start slowly your average rating of opponents goes down, tie break scores are lower, rating performance drops etc. In a sense it is not at all rewarding as in GM Kunte scores 4/5 in ONGC cup, however has to settle for a 2462 performance. This is why chess players prefer Round Robin events. What solutions could be put forward to improve the rating performance in open events?
- Have tournaments fixed to certain rating groups. Like in Aeroflot they have 2550+, 2400+ etc.
- Follow the way of the Kolkatta international tournament which only accepted 88 entries and by Round 3 we had a leader!
- Start brilliantly as a high seed!
I would like to thank all readers for reading this blog and for the nice remarks. I hope to continue my research and come up with more reliable data on open events. However in RR events it is certain that the 2nd half is indeed critical to good placing in the tournament.
Thanks,
Siddharth
