GM Nodirbek Yakubboev won the Masters tournament of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Chess Festival and the accompanying check for $30,000. The Uzbek grandmaster prevailed in a tiebreak against GMs David Paravyan, Shamsiddin Vokhidov, Amin Tabatabaei, Leon Luke Mendonca and IM Daniel Quizon.
The highly competitive 30th edition of the Abu Dhabi Chess Festival took place from August 14 to 25 at the five-star St. Regis Abu Dhabi Corniche hotel and featured many different events, including tournaments for children, juniors and seniors, government agencies and embassies.
The main tournament, the Masters, was a nine-round Swiss system with 217 participants from 46 different federations, including 50 grandmasters. Yakubboev finished the tournament in Buchholz in a group of six players with seven points to win the tournament: the number of points scored by his opponents multiplied by his own score. His score was half a point higher than Paravyan’s, a tiny difference of almost $20,000, as the other tied players shared their prizes:
Yakubboev’s luck followed a solid but not spectacular tournament in which he remained undefeated. The Uzbek grandmaster started with three wins against players rated below 2500 and later scored 2.5/3 against players rated below 2600, while drawing against the three 2600-rated players he faced.
His game in the third round was beautiful:
In the final round, Yakubboev was under pressure when Mendonca himself won the first prize but let his opponent escape:
The other Uzbek on the podium, Vokhidov, was even closer to winning the tournament. He won a pawn early in his game against Paravyan and eventually reached a winning rook endgame, but was unable to convert it. What a difference a check makes!
The odd name in the top group is Quizon from the Philippines, the only non-Grandmaster with seven points. With a performance rating of 2749 against a field that included six Grandmasters, this was clearly enough for a GM norm.
In the final round he defeated the strong Indian grandmaster Narayanan SL in a King’s Indian game:
One of the side events was a strong online blitz tournament consisting of an 11-round Swiss system followed by a knockout, which was eventually won by GM Hikaru Nakamura. You can watch him streaming the event below.
The 30th Abu Dhabi Chess Festival 2024 Masters was held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, from August 15 to 24, 2024. The format was a nine-round Swiss system. The time control was 90 minutes for the entire game plus 30 seconds bonus from the first move. The prize money was $63,600.
