How playing online blitz helped Nihal win the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize

by Sagar Shah - 23/01/2021

Nihal Sarin recently won the Gazprom Brilliancy award for the best game from the World Youth online championships 2020. The youngster won the under-18 section. The game that was chosen as the best game was his semi-final victory over Francesco Sonis. But did you know, Nihal knew about this deep opening trap before the game itself? Did you know, he fell prey to this trap in an online game? Well, it's a wonderful story of how any work on chess is never wasted! Nihal's irrelevant blitz game helped him to win the World Youth under-18 Championships 2020. Read this amazing story!

Before we get going, let me pose a question to you. White to play. What would you do here?

Playing a lot of blitz chess online - is it helpful for your chess or not? This perennial question always evoked different responses from the experts. But one which became quite ubiquitous in my journey as an improving player was - "Playing blitz is fine, but don't overdo it. It helps to build up your speed and intuition, but it is bad for your deep calculations. So playing blitz is fine, but always do it in moderate amounts." And the world seemed to agree to this notion! But then came Nihal Sarin.

The little boy with his Kasparov like gaze on the chess board! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Nihal is now 16 years old and has a FIDE rating of 2620. He is the third youngest chess player ever to reach an Elo of 2600 and is very close to reaching 2700 on the blitz rating scale. This young boy has basically built up his chess career by playing online speed chess! Don't believe us? Check out how he won the Gazprom brilliancy prize at the World Youth online under-18 championships 2020.

India won four medals at the World Online Youth Championships 2020 with Nihal, Rakshitta and Gukesh winning the gold in the under-18, under-16 girls and under-14 respectively. Mrinmoy Rajkhowa won the bronze medal in the under-10 section.

Along with the gold medal, Nihal also won the brilliancy prize award that was sponsored by Gazprom. This beautiful shining trophy for his beautiful game against IM Francesco Sonis in the Semi-Finals

How Nihal won the brilliancy prize

Nihal was up against the talented Italian youngster Francesco Sonis in the semi-finals. The first game had ended in a draw and now we were down to the second and the final game of the mini-match. If this ended in a draw, then we would go to the Armageddon. Nihal opened the game with 1.d4 and Francesco played the Ragozin, which converted into the Vienna. Vienna is one of Nihal's favourite opening systems as black and he has extensively practice with it, especially in online games.

Nihal Sarin vs Francesco Sonis

One of the main positions of the Ragozin. Here Black took the pawn on c4

White has excellent development, but in return Black has the bishop pair. A well known position in modern opening theory.

Black has just castled here. The main move used to be Qe2 followed by Rad1, and often White would not think about recapturing the d4 pawn. But in this particular situation Nihal took the pawn on d4 with his knight.

Nihal had already reached this position before against Alexey Sarana at the Karpov trophy Rapid in 2019. In that game Nihal had pulled his bishop back to e7 and the game had ended in a draw.

While the result in the above game was fine, Nihal was looking at improvements for Black side after Nxd4. This is when he struck upon the move Qc7!

One of the most natural moves in the position which creates a double attack with the c4 bishop hanging and also the e5 pawn.

A few months before the game when Nihal was playing online, just like any other day, he tried the move Qc7 against IM Sergey Drygalov. The Russian IM who has a FIDE rating of 2490 stunned Nihal with the move Nf6+! Nihal lost that game, but made a note of those lines in his head. The result? Well, just when it mattered the most - at an important event like the World Youth, the same opening transpired and Nihal managed to score the full point.

The knight jumps to f6 with a check!

The most important question now is whether the knight on f6 should be taken or you go just Kh8. If gxf6, Qg4+ Kh8 (Kh7 exf6 is game over).

White plays the powerful move Qf4! This leads to White recovering the piece. You can check out the analysis in the replayable board below.

Francesco played his king to h8, declining the knight sacrifice.

Nihal now moved his queen to c2. A mate is threatened on h7 and hence the knight has to be taken.

Next Nihal played his queen to c1. Hitting the h6 pawn. Note how bringing the king to h7 will only lose the queen to Bd3+. Sonis saw that there is no real danger and picked up the pawn on e5 with his queen.

Nihal has taken the pawn on h6 and has to figure out a way to continue the attack. Notice he is a piece down. Also to bring in another piece into the attack is not so easy. Qg5 is a threat. This is the same position given at the start of the article. Find the best move for White here.

f4!! A stunning move by Nihal. You are ready to give up the knight on d4 with a check, after which the bishop also hangs. The reason for it is that you get to lift the rook from f1 to f3 and then deliver a mate!

The only way in which Sonis could survive was to sacrifice his queen for the f1 rook. He managed to do that but he eventually lost the game!

A lot of people may just put down this game, by saying that it was merely preparation. Nihal did not find it on the board! But they miss the point - preparation is a part of chess! Didn't Nihal feel the pain when he lost the online game to Drygalov? He could have just left it as a bitter experience and carried on. But he decided to analyze the position. He kept the lines in his mind and his memory didn't let him down when it mattered the most. It also shows the attitude of Nihal - he is not afraid to lose. He learns from his mistakes and keeps improving as a player. Congratulations Nihal, well done!

When we analyzed the game with Nihal (the entire video given below), we also invited two of India's top visually impaired chess players - brothers Soundarya and Prachurya Pradhan. Soundarya had just made a new website which would prove to be a useful tool for all blind players. Nihal congratulated Soundarya for his excellent work. A scholarship of Rs.15,000 was awarded to Soundarya at the hands of Nihal Sarin. This amount was compensation that ChessBase India was to receive from Gazprom and FIDE for being the judge of the brilliancy prize contest. Soundarya, who receives this amount, will use it to make his website even better. Also, don't miss out on Prachurya's brilliant singing in the video. A big thanks to Nihal who is not just a champion on the board, but also takes out time to motivate and inspire others off the board.

Video analysis:

Nihal Sarin analyzes this game himself with IM Sagar Shah. Later, Soundarya and Prachurya Pradhan, two of India's top visually impaired chess players join in.