Challenge 2500 | 13. Trieste

The End to a Tiring Streak of Competitive Chess

Let me begin comme il faut: by appreciating Trieste, a coastal, yet hilly — thinking back to the walk (or should I say, climb?!) from the apartment to the playing site, I am even tempted to say mountainous — city in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region in the very north-east of Italy, just a stonesthrow from Slovenia, and not too far from Croatia either.

The walk back to the apartment offered some great views of the Adriatic Sea

I had already been in Trieste the previous year, although then for just a couple of days, as me and a good friend were playing the 5-round weekend tournament, which takes place right after the 9-round open.

This time though, it was time for just that — the actual 9-round open, the real deal.

The field was strong — even with my new and shiny rating of 2448, I was starting ranked 13th. In total, 10 Grandmasters, 8 International Masters and many more titled players participated. Thinking about it now, this was the strongest open tournament I had competed in quite a while.

It was also my 4th tournament in a row: starting on August 5th, I had first played a 9-round open in the Netherlands, then a GM tournament in Romania, followed by a 7-round open tournament in Germany, and a couple of days after that, this one started — and so I hoped for a decent result despite the fact that some level of fatigue would likely set in.

How the tournament went

Let’s take a look at the games. This time, I’ll do the summary of the tournament afterwards, that is probably the preferable way of doing things from a story-telling perspective.

1.

To start off the tournament, I had the White pieces against Slovenian WIM Vidic (2085). I got a pleasant position out of the opening and enjoyed a clean bishop pair advantage. In the following position though, after a perhaps a little too creative 13.Bf3 (intending a kingside attack with h3-h4-h5):

my opponent should have tried 13. …Ne8! preparing …Bd6 to trade my strong dark-squared bishop and thereby halving my bishop pair, where she would’ve had a pretty solid position.

However, after the slightly passive 13. …Nh7 14.h4 Qxb3 15.axb3 g5 16.hxg5 Nxg5 17.Be2 g6 18.b4…

… White is the one having all the fun, since the b4-b5 break is interesting, but also migrating the knight into c5 and/or playing on the h-file could be dangerous. In the meantime, Black barely has any active ideas of their own.

In the game, Nd2-b3-c5 followed by threats on the h-file did turn out to be very strong indeed, as we reached this position after 23.g5:

Bf4-e5 is coming, when Black will have to stop the mate-threat with f7-f6, which weakens the pawn structure considerably. A few moves later, another idea became relevant — a good old king march!

With my last move Kc2 I started the long, but fruitful journey to b6. If and when the king finally reaches that square, the b7-pawn will be one more critical weakness in Black’s camp — and most (if not all) rook or pawn endgames will be winning at that point.

Why stop at b6 though?

…just showing this diagram because the king march was so much fun. The game was won a couple of moves later — a good start to the tournament.

2.

In the second round, I had Black against Sepehrkhoui (2195). The opening went reasonably well as I got an equal endgame that offered some chances to play for a win.

With my last move, 15. …Rfb8!?, I prepared to generate some play on the queenside, e.g. by simply pushing the pawns forward with …c5-c4 followed by …b6-b5-b4, which might create a critical pawn weakness on c3.

I followed through with that plan, and here:

…my opponent stopped …b5-b4 by playing 20.b4? himself, but that creates a huge weakness on c3 right away. After 20. …cxb3 21.Bxb3 Rc8…

…it becomes clear that c3 is too much of a weakness. Black can start attacking it with moves like …Ra7-c7 and, if necessary, …Ne4. Also, if at some point the c3-pawn is pinned to a rook defending it from c1, …b5-b4 is another resource — and that is what happened in the game:

Black wins the pawn and reaches a position that should be winning. A few moves later, I had a cute resource that converted the advantage nicely:

31. …e6-e5! decisively unleashed the bishop that had been patiently waiting for its turn to play an active role in the game.

A pretty smooth game and a 2/2 start to the tournament.

3.

I now was paired for the first time against a higher-rated player, GM Brunello (2499) from Italy.

My opponent offered a draw on move 1 (!), after 1.e4 e5. After some consideration — after all, a draw is not a bad result against an experienced grandmaster — I declined. I couldn’t bring myself to agree to a draw that quickly.

The draw offer did influence my opening choice though, which I’m not sure is a great thing. Here’s how and why: one of the worst feelings in chess is losing a game after declining a draw offer in an equal position — and the position after 1.e4 e5 is, if I haven’t missed any revolutionary theoretical developments, very much equal endeed — and so I went for a very solid line, the Spanish Four Knights.

The right approach in case of such an early draw offer might be to 'forget about it' and play the game as if the draw offer didn’t actually occur. Not necessarily an easy thing to do though psychologically.

In the game I actually got a bit of an advantage in this position:

Here, the innocuous looking 11.Re1 0-0 12.Be3 appears to secure a slight advantage:

I assume Black’s problem is that the light-squared bishop experiences difficulties to find an active role in the game, while White can try to patiently improve their position move by move, perhaps by pushing pawns on the edges of the board gaining some space.

I didn’t evaluate this as better at all, not even slightly, and so I went for the more ambitious looking (but not actually dangerous) 11.Qh5 preventing …0-0, but my opponent handled this well by simply playing 11. …g6 12.Qh6 Be6

…when …Qh4 is coming, trading queens and equalising easily. Realising I didn’t achieve anything (which admittedly is not an unlikely result of playing this opening line), I offered a draw with 13.Be3 which my opponent accepted.

A decent result, though I will have to think more carefully about how to evaluate the game from a psychological point of view and how to handle early draw offers in general.

4.

I now had Black against one of the favourites of the tournament according to rating, Serbian GM Perunovic (2540). There is barely anything to say about the game, as it was in its entirety general opening preparation from my side. My opponent went for 6.d3 in the classical Ruy Lopez and offered a draw in this position:

Black is incredibly solid, but it’s certainly not the sort of position where one can hope for more than a draw and so I accepted the offer happily and without much hesitation. An easy draw with Black against a strong player was something I welcomed at this point — I was starting to feel some serious fatigue in this tournament.

This particular game was the 29th classical game in about a month and I didn’t mind not having to fight for hours on end. This took me to 3/4 points.

By the way, the line I opted for in this game is quite rare, but was played by grandmasters Gustafsson and R. Svane in 2022, and so I feel like I’m in illustrious German company with this one :)

5.

I was now White against a young Slovenian player, Gregoric (2177). The opening went very well as my opponent didn’t handle his Bogo-Indian defence perfectly.

Here White has a significant strategic advantage, that can be perhaps boiled down to: more and better plans / pawn breaks and more active pieces than Black due to the big space advantage.

I had restricted Black’s knight with my last move 10.g3 (before that, 9.h3 restricted the c8-bishop as well) and now, the typical corrective manouvre Nd2-b1-c3 was on my agenda. Meanwhile, Black doesn’t have much to play for except the typical break …f7-f5, but that is not only incredibly difficult to achieve, but often just further worsens the position as it creates many weaknesses.

A few moves later, I was fully developed and could start to poke ad prod at the Black position with Ba4+ and Qd2 attacking the h6-pawn.

My opponent decided to complicate matters — by actually going for …f7-f5 sacrificing the h6-pawn — which I think is the right thing to do in such a position. Objectively though, White is almost winning here:

Apparently, the direct 21.f4 is strongest, opening up the position right away. However, I couldn’t resist including the following moves: 21.Ba4+ Kf7 22.Bc6 Rc8 23.Nb5 Qb8 24.f4

This is still strong, but it could be argued that the c6-bishop is kind of out of play and Black’s f5-bishop is unchallenged. I thought that Black not being able to play …Re8 at some point — as my light-squared bishop now reliably controls that square — was worth it though. Also, the Black queen will need some time get back into the game.

My opponent fought valiantly though, and after 27. …Nh7:

— which I had completely missed — it’s kind of important that White has 28.Bd7! dissolving the activity that Black is starting to develop just in time.

Black’s immediate idea was …Nhxg5 followed by …Rxh3 when the rook enters the game with great effect. If White plays 28.Bh6 defending against this idea, 28. …Nhf6! would create some decent practical chances:

Suddenly, all of Black’s minor pieces are active, and …Rxh6 followed by …Rh8 is a potentially dangerous exchange sacrifice.

In the game though, 28.Bd7! did maintain a pretty much winning advantage. After 28. …Bxd7 29.Qxe4 Bf5 however,

I failed to evaluate correctly the completely winning sacrificial idea 30.Rf1 followed by 31.Rxf5 (or 31.h5 in some positions) and instead went for the slightly slower 30.Qf3. But even that should be close to winning, as h4-h5 is still a threat. Indeed, after 30. …a6? 31.h5! Nxg5 32.Rxg5 my attack was too strong.

…as the simple hxg6 is coming up next. A pretty good game (though not perfect of course) that brought me to 4/5 points.

6.

I was now paired with Black against GM Velasquez Schroeder (2478) from Chile. And this game was in some ways similar to my game against Perunovic — my opponent offered a draw in a position that I had prepared and of which I knew that it was equal:

White has just 'won' a piece, but Black should not capture the rook back right away (or even at all), as that would leave White with two pieces against a rook and a basically winning position. Instead, 12. …c5! is the right move and the final move of my prep in this particular line. The threat is simply to trap White’s light-squared bishop with …c5-c4.

One of the ideas appears to be that Black has excellent compensation for the piece after 13.c4 f5! 14.exf6 Bxf6…

when the f-file, the central pawn mass that can be put into motion at the right moment with …d7-d5!, and the fact that most of White’s pieces are yet to be developed and do not participate in the action — ensure sufficient compensation.

It is obvious that this position is very different in nature from the position Perunovic offered me a draw in, as here, winning chances certainly exist. And so the right thing to do is to play on and play for the win — which I didn’t do…

I accepted the draw for two reasons (that are not supposed to excuse the decision, but simply explain why I made it):

1. I didn’t actually know how to react after 13.c4 as my prep stopped with 12. …c5. In such a sharp position, not looking at the most logical continuation at least a little bit is exactly what not to do when learning sharp opening lines or building a repertoire generally, but at the same time, it can be tough to pick and choose which lines to look at more extensively — e.g., this was just one of dozens of lines I had reviewed before the game, and a pretty rare one as well.

2. I started to feel pretty tired when calculating the lines after 12. …c5 13.c4 and didn’t trust myself to find the right continuation.

A draw with Black against a GM was a good result, but I realise that I need to fight on in these kinds of situations if I want to continue improving in the future.

7.

The next day, I had White against Italian GM Basso (2493). I mainly prepared for 1.e4 e5 as it’s the move he chooses most often, and had opted for so far in this tournament as well.

However, he went for Caro-Kann and I had to make a difficult choice, as I’ve analysed and learned many different systems against this solid opening, so I’ll explain my thinking at this point:

1. The advance variation 3.e5 is the most ambitious and complex line and in my view the best try for an objective advantage. However, it had been a while since I’d reviewed the lines and didn’t feel too confident about the prospect of remembering how to deal with whatever my opponent might throw at me over the board.

2. The second option I considered was the modern endgame variation 2.Nf3 d5 3.d3!?. This might look innocuous to the non-initiated, but the endgame it invites is far from trivial to handle for Black, who should know quite well how to play it, as it is surprisingly easy to drift into a super uncomfortable purely defensive position. I decided against this line though as I had seen a game my opponent had played against this line in the past where he went for one of the best plans and equalised easily.

3. The third option and the one I went for was the exchange variation 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 which I think is generally underrated as a way to fight for a modest, but stable advantage. Black has to be well-prepared to fully equalise against this approach.

   The downside is that even if Black doesn’t fully equalise, typically the advantage is quite small and Black’s position very healthy and stable, which makes trying to increase the edge difficult for White.

Indeed, my opponent — probably not having expected the exact setup I chose — played it safe, which meant accepting a slightly worse, but incredibly solid position:

How should White try to make the most of this position? It’s clear White is doing well: solid structure, bishop pair, no development problems.

Except for the aspect of the bishop pair the same is true for Black though. Also, the slightly awkward placement of the f3-Queen means that a simple and strong idea for Black is to finish development, castle kingside and push through the central break …e6-e5. Something like that happened in our game.

Here, White can perhaps still hope for a slight advantage with 16.Bf1!?. Instead, I went for 16.Bc2, wanting to keep pointing toward the kingside. However, there are no threats there and the bishop becomes a bit clumsy on c2, and in some lines even a tactical weakness, which was relevant in the game. Also, from f1 the bishop would cover the important c4-square.

After 16. …Qd6 17.Qf4 (pinning the knight to the queen) Qb6!

elegantly solved all of Black’s problems, stepping out of the pin and leaving the knight on e5 en prise — I don’t win a piece with 18.Rxe5 since …Qxb2 (either immediately or after trading on e5 first) will win it back. Realising I had lost all of my advantage, I played 18.Rab1 Ng6 19.Bxg6 offering a draw, which was accepted.

8.

In round 8, I had Black against IM Aghayev (2420). I went for a double-edged Sicilian as I wanted to get a fighting position with winning chances. My opponent chose a solid approach I hadn’t analysed though and I ended up in exactly what you don’t want when playing a sharp opening: defending a slightly worse endgame.

Here, I was most worried about a plan involving pushing the a-pawn to a5 and followed by at the right moment sinking the c4-knight into b6, after which I thought my position would become highly precarious, and indeed the engine confirms that this would give White a significant edge. My opponent instead went for piece-play with 16.Rad1 0-0 17.Nca5 Nxa5 18.Nxa5, but after 18. …Rd7!

…I had survived the worst. The knight is annoying on a5, but it doesn’t do all that much as long as White doesn’t get in c3-c4 — displacing the d5-knight and thereby unleashing the fianchettoed bishop’s attack on the b7-square — which is not easy to achieve, since for the moment, 19.c4 is met by 19. …Nb4!, when White has some weak squares and pawns to deal with as well. In the meantime, I was ready to double rooks on the d-file. The passivity of my light-squared bishop is temporary — at some point, it will be able to emerge from the shadows.

The game continued 19.Bc1 Rfd8 20.a3 Nb6 21.Rxd7 Rxd7 22.Bf3 Bd8!

…which was a nice way of preparing to get rid of that pesky knight on a5. The position was equal and at some point, we reached what should have been a very comfortable endgame:

This is where on a good day, I would’ve hoped to perhaps put some pressure and try to push a little bit for the win — even though White should hold without many problems at all — but the way I played I can be happy about not slipping into a worse position, as incredible as that may sound. The rest of this game I was at the height of my 'chess-fatigue' and made me thankful that this tournament would be the last for a while. To give one example for the simple tactics I was missing:

Here already I had misplayed the position, as White is about to set up his dream piece configuration with Nc2-e3. To make things worse, I played 38. …Bb5?! missing that after 39.Ne3 Ke6? (thankfully I realised my mistake and didn’t play this move) 40.Bxf6! White wins a clean pawn. I managed to pull myself together and draw the game without giving any objective chances to my opponent, but still, a shaky game… even though the Lichess summary doesn’t necessarily show it:

A nice example for how engine evaluations don’t show the whole picture. Seeing this graph one might assume this was a well-played game where White had an advantage but Black defended well. In reality, a better description might be 'White was clearly better, didn’t find the most accurate way of continuing to put pressure, then Black just had to make normal moves to not lose, but missed some basic tactical motives and was lucky the position was solid enough to still be equal thereafter'.

9.

After my shaky previous game my confidence in my ability to play chess was very low and honestly just wanted this tournament — and this whole streak of competitive chess — to be over. I was White against talented Moldovan IM Ceres (2453) and my goal was to get through the opening phase unscathed and, depending on how I felt in during the game, be able to offer a draw from a position of strength (or at least, a position of solidity). The opening didn’t exactly go perfectly and in this position…

… Black does have some interesting options such as playing 15. …b6 to prepare …c5, or even just double rooks on the e-file starting with 15. …Re7.

I was happy to see 15. …c5 be played without preparation, as now I could actually reach a stable position playing against the isolated pawn: 16.dxc5 Qxc5 17.Nb3 Qb6 18.Bxg6! hxg6 19.Nd4

…and White is not much better at all — at most, very slightly — but the position is very stable on the dark squares and Black’s light-squared bishop can’t contribute much. One move later I offered a draw and my opponent accepted. Under better circumstances this would’ve been a typical position I’d want to push for a win in, but I really felt I was depleted of chess-playing energy at this point.

Summary

All in all, a draw-heavy tournament: 3 wins, 6 draws, 0 losses. One could say it was a ‘clean’ performance: 3 wins against lower-rated opponents and all draws against GMs and IMs with an average rating of 2480. Of course, I would like to be able to play more ambitiously against players of this rating range in the future.

Here is my chess-results score-card. A performance of 2496 and a rating gain of +7.3 is a decent way to end this stretch of competitive chess and should take me to 2455, which of course is another PR.

I ended up 8th and won some prize money, which is always a nice bonus.

I’m happy about the fact I was never in huge trouble objectively. Apart from my game against IM Aghayev in round 8, I was never even remotely worse. This is reflected also in an average centipawn loss of 8.67 and and average accuracy of 97% according to Lichess computer analysis. These numbers are of course helped by relatively quick draws, some of which theoretical ones I didn’t even have to work for — at least not at the board, they are of course worked for at home in opening preparation — but it’s still nice to play accurate chess.

However, I didn’t really create many winning chances either. One thing I have to work on is to become a dangerous player. To continue making strides, I think I’ll need to work on virtues like fighting spirit, risk-taking, confidence, fast decision taking / time management.

For now though, let’s finish up this blog entry. I plan on writing a seperate article summarising my last four tournaments and writing out how I want to continue my training and what I want to focus on to become a better — and more dangerous — chess player, and give an outlook as to what comes next in terms of competitive classical chess.

Let’s end with one more photo from Trieste:

the 'canal grande' in Trieste

Thanks so much for reading and following along! As always, any suggestions, criticism or encouragement are very much appreciated.

Until next time. Cheers!