14° Open Internazionale delle Dolomiti

After the Vigevano chess tournament, I stayed in Italy a little longer (who could resist) and played another tournament there, the Chess Open Dolomites. This tournament took place from the 10th to the 17th of June in the lovely town of Forni di Sopra. The town was located right in the middle of the mountains, which gave us some breathtaking views, fresh air, and many possibilities between the rounds. Such as hiking or playing basketball with other chess players on the basketball court, which was right in front of the playing hall.

The tournament was played by a 9-round swiss-system and the time control was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game and 30 seconds per move starting from move number one.

The tournament was divided into two sections. I played in the main tournament, which had 57 players, from which 22 were titled players, including 4 GMs, and they were from 12 different countries.

My games

As I was ranked 40th, I got a stronger opponent in the first round. I got into a losing position, fortunately, my opponent blundered and missed a win in the endgame and the game ended in a draw. In the next round, the roles changed, I blundered a tactic in a much better position and lost the game.

In the third game, I was paired with a stronger opponent again but got a fantastic position. In the final position, I couldn’t spot the win so I repeated the moves because of a time trouble. The game ended indecisively.

The winning line was 41. Qf4! and then 41. … Nxf5 42.exf5 Rxf5 43. Nf2!!

This is a double threat: if 43… Rxf4 then 44. Rxg8 mate and if 43. … Rxg2 then 44. Qb8 Rg8 45. Qxg8 mate.

In the fourth round, I was black against a Fide Master, but after a long fight, the game ended in a draw again. The fifth game was more interesting and also my longest game ever, as it had 109 moves, but unfortunately, after six hours of fighting, I lost the game and ratings with it.

The sixth game ended with a win for me after my opponent blundered in the endgame, and then I made a draw in the next two games. In the last game, my opponent didn’t show up for the morning round and I won by default.

In the end, I finished 29th and gained a lot of rating points, and many experiences against strong opponents.

The race for the first place

From the beginning, the tournament leader was GM Luca Moroni after scoring an amazing 4 wins. In the fifth and sixth games, he made quick draws, but he came back in the seventh round and took a full point. After seven rounds, he had 6 points with half a point ahead of GM Nevednichy and a point ahead of the other four players.

In the eighth round, Moroni played with black pieces against Nevednichy and got into a worse position after an unclear sacrifice of exchange. Later he saved the game and he was still leading the tournament.

Unfortunately, in the last round, Moroni lost to GM Deepan after an attack on his king, and by this, he fell down to 4th place. In the end, GM Basso Pier won the tournament after he won in the last round with black pieces and scored 7 points. The second place was taken by GM Nevednichy Vladislav and GM Deepan Chakkravarthy placed third.

I really enjoyed this tournament and met a lot of interesting people there. The organizers and arbiters were very friendly, which made the atmosphere great. think that there should be more tournaments like this one!

Author

LUCIA ŠEVČÍKOVÁ