Candidate Master Taffin Khan took the second game of the two-best-in-three playoff to defeat Loris Nathoo and claim the title of National Chess Champion 2023 on Wednesday evening at the Ocean Spray Hotel.
The game was of ten minutes duration and ended in 39 moves. Nathoo played black and countered a king pawn (e4) opening with the Caro-Kann Defence, wandering unconsciously into his opponent’s milieu. Khan is a specialist in the vagaries of the Caro-Kann on either the white or black side. I make this assessment because his father, David Khan, loved the Caro-Kann and played it often in competitions. The other two games, one of 15 minutes duration and the next at five minutes duration, ended in draws.
In the Caro-Kann defence which Khan won, Nathoo steered the game into unknown territory from the inception. He seized the centre square (e5), a good move, when his opponent failed to play d4 on his second move according to conventional theory. But Nathoo was having difficulty finding a proper square for his queen bishop. He lost a piece on the 39th move and correctly resigned the game. I am of the opinion that Nathoo’s woes began when he allowed white to establish a commanding pawn centre. It was stifling. Added to that, Nathoo was behind on the clock and naturally it had a negative effect upon him. Khan played superbly. The tournament was sponsored by Gaico.
Meanwhile, the 2024 Chess Olympiad will be held in Budapest, Hungary, while Uzbekistan will host the 2026 Olympiad. Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, earned the right to host the 2028 Chess Olympiad. It defeated its competitor Genoa at a meeting of the FIDE Council on December 17 with a vote of 96 to 60. The Chess Olympiads are held every two years.
