Intro
Just two days after playing the last round of Vlissingen Open (Lichess blog entry about that), my next event started: a GM tournament which took place in Satu Mare, Romania, from 14.-20.08.
I didn’t get to see much of Satu Mare, but here two photos:
It turns out that writing lengthy articles while competing in back-to-back tournaments — and travelling in between — is pretty tough, so I hope the esteemed reader will forgive the publishing delay.
While the playing conditions in Satu Mare were far from perfect — the playing hall not being climatised being the main point worthy of criticism, resulting in easily the worst heat I’ve ever had to play chess in — I thankfully still managed to perform decently and gain some rating.
The field (here the link to chess-results) had an average rating of 2386 and was comprised of some of young and ambitious Romanian and Hungarian players, a few not-so-young and not-so-ambitious veteran GMs — and me.
The amount of fight-less draws in less than 10 moves was through the roof, which made me think that organisers of GM tournaments should consider implementing incentives for GMs to try and do well, for example by adding some sort of prize fund. The way many such tournaments appear to function is that grandmasters are payed to show up, and so to a certain extent it makes sense for them to cut their workday short by making quick draws.
Another sidenote — the time control was slightly unusual insofar as there were 15 minutes added after time control. Usually — at least in my recent experience — tournaments go for either no additional time at all or for an additional 30 minutes. Those 15 min. were really not much at all, and so reaching time control wasn’t as much of a safety net as it otherwise often is, since even winning positions still can be — and indeed were, as we’ll see — messed up. Still, I certainly prefer this to not having any additional time.
Let’s start with the stone-cold facts, as always: I scored 6/9 points, which amounted to a rating performance of 2506, and a rating change of +9.4. This, added to the result from Vlissingen, should take me to right around 2445 — having started this project at just over 2400, I’m happy that I’m approaching the halfway point!
Let’s look at the games.
The Tournament, Round by Round
1.
To start the tournament, I had Black against GM Okhotnik (2320) from France. Given that the pairings were drawn just minutes before the start of the round, there was no time to prepare, so I opted to play solidly and went for a French Defence.
My opponent chose a rather innocuous line, but I didn’t quite remember how to best parry it, so I chose to simplify the position and we went into an endgame by trading queens quite early. White was very slightly better, but my opponent offered a draw in this position:
I didn’t see any winning chances whatsoever, so I accepted. My intention had been to meet his last move 13.Bg5 with 13. …Be6 14.Bxe6 fxe6 15.Rae1 Kf7, when only White can be better, but at the same time I shouldn’t experience too many difficulties holding the draw.
An acceptable start to the tournament, even though, of course, I would’ve preferred to create more of a chance to play for a win.
2.
The following day, there was two rounds. In the morning, I had Black again, this time against FM Ognean (2355) from Romania, and again I went for a French Defence. For a while, the position remained roughly balanced evaluation-wise, but there were some positional inbalances, so there was certainly potential for either of us to go wrong — or create winning chances.
Indeed, my opponent was the first to make a mistake, which I managed to punish quite nicely. In this position, after 21.Be5?, Black can gain a significant advantage:
Here I won a pawn with 21. …Bxg2 22.Kxg2 Qe6! (attacking both the bishop on e5 as well as the pawn on c4) 23.Bxf6 dxc4! counterattacking the queen. After 24.Qd4 the following position arises:
Here, I had the longest think of the game, as I went into calculation mode for almost half an hour. This might sound a bit much, but I’m actually happy with my time management in this particular case: up until this point in the game, I had made my decisions and executed my moves relatively quickly, so I had some time in the bank; and I believe this is the right moment to spend a sizable chunk of that, since we’ve reached a position were I have the potential to be completely winning, but at the same time it could easily be the case that the game would peter out to a draw if I’m not careful — or at least it’s reasonable to assume this during the game.
There’s three distinct options to choose from, and I tried to calculate and evaluate each of them carefully:
The first line was 24. …gxf6 25.Nc5 Qd5+ 26.Qxd5 cxd5, but after 27.Nd7 I couldn’t find a clear-cut win — even though the two central pawns do look pretty good. I even thought about sacrificing the f6-pawn and playing 27. …Rd8 28.Nxf6+ Kg7, but stopped roughly at this point, because the White’s knight can return home with checks and I wasn’t sure my central pawn duo was actually going to be decisive in the resulting position, and so I couldn’t convince myself to go for this.
It turns out though that in that line after 29.Nh5+ (instead, 29.Ng4! appears to be a tough defence and the actual reason Black shouldn’t necessarily go for this line) Kg6 30.Nf4+ Kf5 Black’s active king paired with the strong passed d-pawn gives a huge advantage:
Next, I tried to assess the rook endgame arising after 24. …gxf6 25.Nc5 Bxc5 26.Qc5 Qd5+ 27.Qxd5 cxd5. I quickly realised that if I managed to bring my king to d6, I would be completely winning, as I can simply activate the rook afterwards via the b-file and start cleaning up the White pawns. For example: 28.Kf3 Kf8 29.Ke3? Ke7 30.Kd4 Kd6…
…and Black just plays …Rb8 next and it becomes clear that the White king on d4 doesn’t afford any counterplay whatsoever. In fact, there are mating ideas involving Rb8-b3-d3#.
After realising this, I was about to go for this option, but then I noticed White is able to stop my king from entering the game, for example by playing 29.Re1! Rb8 (an attempt to deflect the rook from the e-file) 30.Rd1! Rd8 31.Re1! and I simply can’t bring my king to the desired d6-square.
Now, the position might still be winning, but if it is, it’s far from trivial and during the game I did not want to risk it. So I looked at the third option, since…
24. …cxb3 25.Bxg7 c5 looked promising as well — White’s bishop experiences some difficulties returning home safely, while Black’s queenside majority looks strong and the White pawns (especially b2) are quite vulnerable.
For inctance, after 26.Qf6 Ra6! is strong; and this is what happened in the game. It continued 27.Qxe6 Rxe6 28.Bc3 Bxc3 29.bxc3 c4! and this was far more convincing then the other lines:
The connected passed pawn on b3 as well as White’s soft c3-pawn means Black enjoys a decisive advantage.
I used up almost all of my time on move 24, but the time was well-spent, as the position I reached as a result of those calculations was winning and easy to convert. This was a rare case of good time management and decision-making. Something that would turn out to be lacking in some of the following games.
3.
In the afternoon, I had the White pieces against GM Manolache (2432), who suffered a loss earlier that day. I didn’t get much out of the opening, but in the following position, I had one positional feature going for me:
Once the c4/d5-pawns get traded, my pawn strucure is clearly better, as I have a clean 5 vs. 4 majority on the kingside, while Black’s two b-pawns are merely as effective as just one. My opponent didn’t handle the position perfectly and I claimed some serious strategic trumps, however in the following position, there was an opportunity for Black to change the course of the game, as Naroditsky likes to say:
26. …Nxf4! 27.exf4 Qxf4 and Black does indeed have enough compensation for the sacrificed knight. The immediate idea is …Qg3+, otherwise moves like …Rf8 and …dxc4 ensure sufficient activity.
I saw this option, but underestimated it. Instead though, my opponent went for the rather slow 26. …Qf7, after which I was able to consolidate and secure a significant advantage.
A couple moves later, we reached this position:
It is clear that things have gone wrong for Black, and in fact White should be winning, as there is huge trouble on the kingside for Black. From here, the conversion was not too difficult.
A perfect 100% day and a strong start to the tournament with 2.5/3 points.
4.
The next day, I had Black against IM Filip (2346) and, inspired by the first couple of rounds, I went for a double-edged opening, trying to generate winning chances quickly.
The opening went well but I couldn’t bring myself to commit to the right plan:
In this position (or even more generally, in this type of structure), the right plan is to go for …Nh5 followed by pushing the f-pawn down the board to start an attack. Looking at it now, it looks sensible and strong — during the game though, I only briefly considered it. Why? Well, part of the reason is that I thought I should rather try to play on the queenside, because I have a 3 vs. 2 pawn majority there and both of my bishops point in that direction.
However, the space White has in the center means that it is much easier for him to manoeuvre on the queenside and create an initiative there than it is for Black. This is one of those cases where piece activity rather than pawn mass should dictate on which side of the board to play for an initiative.
I had a couple of opportunities to go for this …Nh5, f7-f5-f4 plan, but once you convince yourself that some idea is bad or simply not worth it, it’s not easy to develop the mental flexibility to reconsider and reevaluate, and in this game I didn’t manage to do that.
The way the game proceeded is only logical considering the aforementioned: White made progress on the queenside while I shuffled around, not achieving much of anything.
In this position, after 29. …Kg7, I was very unhappy about how the game had went and offered a draw, as we both had under 10 minutes and I thought the offer might at least make him burn some more time. After some consideration, the offer was accepted, and so I got away unscathed in what had become a pretty bad position.
While I think it’s too much to say that Black is losing, it’s certainly White with a clear and sizable advantage.
5.
The next day, we had a double round again. In the morning, being White against Pribelszky (2413), I reached a pleasant endgame which soon became more than just pleasant:
In this position, White is dominating, but also has to be careful not to allow Black to escape the bind. Just making my moves on increment, as I had been playing far too slowly up until this point, I went for the hasty 36.b4?! axb4 37.Kb3 Ke7 38.Kxb4(?!) Kd6 39.Rb7 Rb8!
…after which Black is holding things together. Instead, I should’ve gone for 36.Ka3! Ke7 37.Bb5 Kd6 38.Rb7 and Black’s position is hopeless:
Black can barely move! The difference is that here, White has managed to play Bb5 in time such that the d8-rook can’t move. Really, the only piece that can — and at some point, should — move is the knight, but then the Black pawns start falling like ripe fruit.
In the game though, the advantage dwindled and the game was eventually drawn; a big missed chance.
When these types of things happen, the big question is why? The main problem in this game was my time management. I kept second-guessing my calculations and taking far too long on my moves.
Not finding the best continuation with just seconds on the clock is forgivable — but ending up in a situation where accuracy is needed but time is missing… not so much.
6.
In the afternoon, I had Black against GM Istratescu (2361). Some of you may recognise the name — less than 10 years ago, he was a very strong grandmaster with a peak rating of 2677 (!).
So far in the tournament, he had not been all that keen on actually playing chess; all of the games had been sub-10-move draws.
It’s on some level understandable that grandmasters who have already been paid for showing up — and that aren’t ambitious chess players anymore — don’t want to do more work than absolutely necessary, and therefore choose to make quick draws whenever possible. It’s still a bit iffy, not only because many of those sort of draws are likely agreed upon behorehand (in fact, I was asked by an opponent in a later round if I wanted to ‘play for the win’ (to which I replied that I’d like to ‘play a game’, which at least he accepted immediately)), but also as for example up until this game, my average game was 35 moves long and probably >3 hours, while his was 8.2 moves and I’d guess around 10 minutes. This sort of thing of course doesn’t happen in open tournaments, where everybody does their best.
On that note, this tournament did move me toward the camp of no-draw-rule advocates — or at least, some sort of Sofia-rule is probably a good idea. I realise that I myself make (or accept) draw offers, every once in a while even relatively early in the game, but I wouldn’t at all mind playing in tournaments where draw offers are not allowed.
As long as they are allowed though, I don’t think it’s wrong for players utilise that to their advantage, e.g. by making a well-timed draw offer, simply because it is part of the rule-set. There certainly is something to the idea of throwing that out the window though. Maybe I’ll think about this more deeply some other time and write more about this topic, but for now, let’s get back to the games.
In this game, my opponent actually mustered up some fighting spirit and we played a real game of chess — which I was happy to do, even if arguably our respective previous tournament games potentially meant a difference in fatigue (leaving out considerations of health/youth/fitness that may or may not change the equation).
But let’s forget all of this and look at what actually happened in the game. I stayed true to the French, which I had employed with some success so far in this tournament. My opponent played ambitiously (which I didn’t necessarily expect) and castled long, and I reached a great position.
I had just pushed my a-pawn down the board, and after my opponents last move, 18.a3 — stopping myself from going …a3 creating some dark-squared weaknesses around White’s king — I had a great opportunity to grab the initiative with 18. …Nd7! threatening a fork on e5 and generally aiming to annoy White’s heavy pieces; and in fact, White doesn’t have a convenient way of dealing with this move. Of course, 19.Qxd5?? fails to 19. …Nc5 winning an exchange. On any other queen move, …Nc5 will force the rook to retreat, after which one of White’s main ideas — doubling the rooks to put pressure on my vulnerable d5-pawn — is avoided. I think the move briefly crossed my mind, but I didn’t seriously consider it; I don’t quite remember why.
Instead I went for 18. …Ne4, after which White had time to play 19.Nf5 Bf6 20.Rhd1
…and White has achieved his dream set-up. From here, Istratescu outplayed me soundly I must say, letting his former 2650-self shine through.
Later, we reached this position:
White has a few virtually winning options: 31.g4 further softening up my kingside is strong, but also the calm 31.Rd4, keeping the tension and letting the queen attack my slightly lost rook on b5 asks some pretty much unanswerable question.
Instead though, he rushed and went for 31.Rxd5 Rxd5 32.Rxd5 Qxe4! 33.Qxe4 Nxe4 34.Be5 f6 35.Bf4
…when I had survived the worst. The endgame is still slightly tricky to play, as my queenside pawns are soft. Also, at this point, I was in dire time trouble — again, my time management was subpar in this game. Still, for the next couple of moves, I somehow held things together. As it happened though, I blundered on move 40:
Here, the admittedly simple 40. …Nxg3 41.Bxg5 Rxc2 is completely fine! It’s true that White will take one of my queenside pawns and the remaining one will be very vulnerable, but still, in some positions it might even be possible to give up the second pawn as well and rely fully on counterplay involving the passed h-pawn.
Instead, I panicked with 40. …Rd6? after which 41.Rxe4 Rxd8 42.Re5 led to an incredibly bad endgame (analysing it now, it appears to be outright losing).
This is painful… but the story doesn’t end quite yet. After 42. …Kg7 43.Rxg5+ Kh6 44.Rb5 Rd6 (which was a good practical try)…
White has only one winning move: 45.b4!, setting in motion the pawn mass right away. One critical line appears to be 45. …Rg6 46.Kb2! Rxg3 47.Rxb6+ and now …Rg6 doesn’t work, as White exchanges rooks, after which both sides queen their respective passed pawns, but White is faster, picks up the a4-pawn and wins the queen endgame. For example:
47. …Rg6 48.Rxg6+ Kxg6 49.b5 h4 50.b6 h3 51.b7 h2 52.b8Q h1Q 53.Qe8+
…and White wins.
If instead 47. …Kg7, then White is in time to win the a4-pawn and return to the h-file to stop my passed pawn from queening: 48.Ra6 h4 49.Rxa4 h3 50.b5
…and with Rh4 coming, White is easily winning.
This is not easy to calculate at all though, and my opponent went wrong with 45.Ka2. After 45. …Rg6 46.b3 Rxg3 47.Rxb6+ though, I made my worst blunder certainly of the tournament, but probably also of the whole year:
Not playing 47. …Rg6. I must have hallucinated terribly, as I believe, now looking back at this game, that I thought White was winning the typical pawn race after 48.Rxg6+ Kxg6 49.bxa4, which is simply not the case — Black is faster. Instead I went 47. …Kh7 and lost.
This sort of miss should never happen and that evening I couldn’t help but ponder about whether — and if so, to what extent — the heat in the playing hall or perhaps even some psychological reasons (e.g. me thinking about how I should be much more fatigued than my opponent, and this perhaps making me subconsciously expect a blunder on my part, which might’ve ended up being some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy or something along those lines) influenced this.
Such considerations are probably not helpful in most cases though. As for the heat in the playing hall for example, you never now how the game would’ve went otherwise. Who knows, it could easily be that some of my opponent’s mistakes were influenced by the heat as well, and perhaps he would’ve beaten me easily in perfect conditions (after all, the great thing about bad playing conditions is that they are bad for everyone!).
It’s all speculation, and I believe it is generally more useful to speculate about what might happen in the future than about what could’ve happened in the past if x had been y. And so I tried to focus on what layed ahead and started speculating about what my next opponent might play.
Three rounds remained and I had two White games left. I had lost all my rating gains, but this also meant that I could view the last remaining games as a new mini-tournament against tough opposition with all the chances to play decent chess and win some games. And thankfully, I did manage to turn up the next day reasonably well prepared and refreshed, ready to fight and make up for the disaster of the previous day.
7.
I had White against Stoleriu (2398). The opening went well, but the position was complex and we both made some inaccuracies. The following position turned out to be critical:
Here, already in time trouble (again, questionable time management), I went wrong with 31.Bf1? c5 32.Nc6 Ng5 when the Black pieces spring to life and create some dangerous threats.
Instead, 31.Kh2 would have been close to winning. I rejected this move becaue of 31. …Rxf2, where I only considered 32.Re8+? Rf8 when Black is completely fine. However, 32.Rc7! unleashes the passed e-pawn and wins the game:
In the game, my opponent didn’t make use of the chance and on move 40, after both making some mistakes in time trouble, we reached this position:
Easily winning, right? Well, it should be, but I still managed to mess up. I started with 41.Rd3 (trying to activate the rook) but after 41. …Ke7 42.g4!
would have been the cleanest way of proceeding, completely dominating the knight. I considered this, but somehow didn’t want to commit to this pawn move yet, which is a bit ridiculous, since there really is no downside.
Instead, after 42.Rd5? Rf5 43.Rd2 Re5 44.Ra2 Nf5
The Black pieces start creating some problems and winning this position is now surprisingly tricky. After 45.Ra7+ Kd8 46.Kf2 Ne3 I went wrong and allowed a sequence of moves that basically forces a draw by playing 47.Bb3? (instead, Be2 might still be winning):
My opponent found the sequence of moves quite easily: 47. …c4 48.Ba4 Nd5 49.Ra5 (pinning the knight, which I thought should win comfortably) …Rh5 50.g4 Rh2+ 51.Kg3 Rd2! The idea I had missed when going for 47.Bb3. Black solves the pin and is now ready to move the knight. Not just anywhere though: 52.Bb5 g5! 53.Bxc4 Ne3!
Black attacks the bishop, hints at mate in two with …Nf1+ followed by …Rh2# and also prepares the idea that happened in the game: 54.Ba6 Rg2+! 55.Kh3 Rf2!
…and I didn’t have anything better than going for R+B vs. R with 56.Rxg5 Rxf3+ 57.Kh2 (but not 57.Kh4 Ng2+ 58.Kh5 Nf4+ 59.Kh6 Rh3+ 60.Kg7 Ne6+ forking king and rook) Nxg4 58.Rxg4 Rxc3.
Now, rook and bishop against rook is definitely not a trivial draw; every once in a while, the defending side, even if they are a strong player, fails to hold. My opponent made some practical mistakes and ended up in a position where only one move holds the balance:
72. …Ra5+ is important, since after 73.Bd5, my intended Rg8+ is not really a threat, because my bishop remains pinned and attacked.
My opponent didn’t find this move and instead went for 72. …Re7, where 73.Kf5! wins the game; Rg8+ is coming and the Black king is caught in what eventually will be a mating net.
This was the final position. Black’s last resource was the stalemate trick with …Ra7, but my last move 78.Rd3 solves this issue easily. Now, Rd8+ Kh7 Bf5+ is a mate threat, and if the Black rook leaves the 7. rank to defend against that, Rh3# ends the game.
A volatile game but I’m happy that at the end I managed to make the full point — with some help by my opponent of course.
8.
In the penultimate round, I had Black against GM Grigore (2461). I was in a good mood after previous win (even though the game quality wasn't exactly top-notch) and wanted to finish the tournament strong.
I got a pleasant opening position with decent chances to play for a win out of the opening, but my opponent made solid moves, and proving the slight advantage wasn’t simple.
Here, Black clearly has some strategic trumps; my bishop is better than its counterpart on b2 given the pawnstructure, and I have a strong knight on e4. White has a clear plan of advancing their pawns on the queenside, ideally pushing my bishop away from the b8-h2-diagonal, followed by exchanging my knight via Nf3-d2, after which a timely e3-e4 push might even be possible.
Even now, with the help of an engine, it’s not obvious to me how Black should best prevent this idea or make it less effective; in the game, White managed to execute most of this plan without much trouble and we reached this position:
At this point, apparently White is the one who can claim a slight edge by playing on the queenside with a3-a4 and b4-b5, but my opponent decided to simplify the position with 24.cxb6 axb6 25.b5 cxb5 26.d5 exd5 27.e4!?
…which admittedly was a very fancy way of playing which I hadn’t even considered. Thankfully it doesn’t achieve much though, Black has a couple of way to play here. I decided to keep the f-file closed and went for 27. …f4, after which the position is equal and the game ended with an aesthetically pleasing liquidation into a well-known theoretical endgame:
Here, 36. …fxg3 gives up the bishop, White remains the the wrong pawn though. This was the final position were we agreed on a draw:
A decent, relatively high-quality game where both sides had a slight advantage at some point but the balance was held throughout. I was quite happy about this since some of the previous games really were pretty awful at times.
9.
In the last round, I had White against FM Papp (2346). The opening went well, as my opponent played one of the lines I had prepared against and I got a serious objective advantage.
In the following position, I had a couple of strong options:
In general, White’s kingside 5 vs. 4 majority is clearly more mobile and dangerous than Black’s 3 vs. 2 queenside majority. Also, my pieces are more active and have more potential for creating serious threats than Black’s. How exactly to proceed though?
The engines favour 16.Bf5 Bxf5 17.Nxf5, which I’d say is counterintuitive from a positional standpoint, as it trades our strong light-squared bishop for Black’s 'weak' counterpart, after which we’re left with our dark-squared c3-Bishop, which looks like a mere big pawn.
I instead went for 16.h3!? Bxf3 17.gxf3 to force a structural transformation that I thought would make it easier to push forward those kingside pawns. This worked to perfection, since after 17. …Nf8 18.f4 Ne6 19.Ne2 0-0-0,
…the following were my moves (consecutively!): h3-h4, h4-h5, f4-f5, f5-f6, f2-f4, which is pretty cool. And this is how it happened: 20.h4 g6 21.h5 gxh5? (this lets me push those pawns forward too easily. Instead, 21. …Rf8! intending to put some pressure on the f-file, would’ve been a tougher defence) 22.f5 Sg5 23.f6 Bf8 24.f4 Ne6
…and White is pretty much winning. That pawn structure is majestic!
I played decently and didn’t blunder away the advantage as I had done previously in the tournament. My opponent still might have had a practical chance later, in this position:
Here, 36. …a5!? would have been the best try. Black’s only trump is the passed a-pawn, so it should be pushed down the board as soon as possible. Instead, after 36. …Qe8 37.Rxf8 Qxf8 38.Bg2! suddenly the d5-pawn falls:
After that, White’s advantage is overwhelming and I managed to convert. A nice finish to a tough tournament.
Upshot & Outlook
All in all, I am happy with the result, but not ecstatic, as clearly I left some chances on the table. I had some trouble converting winning or close-to-winning positions, but this was mostly attributable to an underlying issue: bad time management. I’ll have to work on that.
I started to write this post in Budapest, were I stayed for a full day before taking on a long train journey to Hessen, Germany, where I was set to play in my next tournament.
Here’s a couple of photos from Budapest, because… well, because it’s Budapest. Certainly one of the most beautiful cities I’ve visited so far. I’ve now been three times — and I certainly intend to come back for more.
In Hessen, I’d be competing in my next event: a 7-round open tournament in Wiesbaden, my third of 4 consecutive tournament participations. In the first two, I performed at 2500+ and so I was inspired to do my best to keep it up in order to make some more progress.
I’m finishing up this article after said tournament in Wiesbaden, and I’m still debating on whether to write a separate article for Wiesbaden or to include it into the next tournament recap, as my next — and, for at least a couple of weeks, last — tournament is going to be a 9-round open tournament in Triest, Italy. Here is a link to that.
Also, this being my first post on here, I’m still figuring out Substack, so if any experienced writer has any tips or suggestions, please let me now. I’d be very thankful.
For now though, I’ll try to recharge in those couple of days I have before the next event — I have played a total of 25 games in the month of August and I definitely noticed some fatigue in some of the last ones.
By the way, I should note that this month has been quite successful in terms of making progress toward the defined goal of reaching 2500, as I am now at 2448 — almost halfway there! I suspect the next 50 points will be much harder though. Also, the annoying part about rating is that it can go down, so I might have to deal with some setbacks. So far though, I’m happy about the progress and inspired to play more chess.
Thanks so much for reading and following along! As always, I’m thankful for any and all suggestions, words of encouragement or constructive criticism.
Until next time! Cheers :)
Just sent this to my two teenagers, who have played tournament chess in the past and hopefully will again. What splendid photos of Budapest! Kudos! Best of luck in your further travels.