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In October 1922 a Schachkongress was held at the resort spa of Teplitz-Schönau, Czechoslovakia. Fourteen European chess masters were invited to participate in the round robin event. Despite the absence of World Champion José Capablanca, former champ Emanuel Lasker, and Alexander Alekhine, the tournament was extremely strong, thanks to the participation great masters like Akiba Rubinstein, Siegbert Tarrasch, Rudolph Spielmann, and Savielly Tartakower. Representing Czechoslovakia were Richard Réti and Karel Treybal. Reti, the hyper-modernist, and Spielmann, the romanticist, tied for first place, each with nine points out of 13 rounds. The tournament achieved attention through its seven brilliancy prize games of amazing artistic and technical skill.
The participants of the Teplitz-Schönau 1922. Standing from left: 1. Borislav Kostic, 2. Paul Johner,3. Karel Treybal, 4. Ernst Grünfeld, 5. Richard Réti, 6. Friedrich Sämisch, 7. Rudolf Spielmann, 8. Saviely Tartakower 9. Not known. Sitting from left: 1. Akiba Rubinstein, 2. Geza Maroczy, 3. Siegbert Tarrasch, 4. Not known, 5. Jacques Mieses, 6. Heinrich Wolf, 7. Richard Teichman, 8. Not known.
Teplice is located near the north western border of Czech Republic and is 89 kms away from Prague and 68 kms from the German city of Dresden
As you can see the city of Teplice has a rich tradition when it comes to the royal game. It is a host to a fine international open tournament that has already reached its tenth edition in 2015. The 10th Teplice International Open took place at the Dum Kultury from the 13th-21st of June, 2015. Thirteen grandmasters and 21 International Masters in a field of 175 players arrived in Teplice to fight for the first prize of 40,000 CZK (approximately US $1640) and a total prize fund of 100,000 CZK (US $4098). The prize fund was not particularly impressive but thanks to the wonderful conditions offered, the organizers were able to rope in some very fine to take part in the event.
Sergei Movsesian with a rating of 2655 was the top seed. It must be mentioned that Sergei, who now resides in Prague for almost ten years, had a peak rating of 2751 in January 2009, and was ranked number ten in the world.
The tournament began with Movsesian taking the sole lead with 4.0/4, and the fifth round already pitted the two top seeds against each other.
Evgeny Postny (left) emerged victorious against
Movsesian in what was one of the
most important rounds of the tournament [picture from the official website].
Strong Israeli grandmasters are opening experts. This has become especially true after Boris Avrukh wrote one of the best opening books ever for Quality Chess with 1.d4 for white. Evgeny Postny is no exception. With the white pieces he is an extremely well prepared opponent with vast opening knowledge. So, when Movsesian tried to play a highly fashionable line in the Catalan that involved long castling with the black pieces, it became not only an interesting game but one with great theoretical importance. Avrukh mentions the same ideas in his update to the 1.d4 Catalan book and I feel that Postny playing them cannot be a mere co-incidence. Although I can be wrong!
In the end, Evgeny Postny, remained unbeaten with a score of 7.5/9 and finished second
For the owners of Mega Database or ChessBase Magazine, the high quality annotations of Postny are well known. He has annotated a mind numbing 745 games for the Mega Database! It was a great gesture from him that he readily agreed to annotate his favourite game from the event. In spite of winning against the top seed, Postny considered his third round attacking win against IM Andrew Ledger to be his best achievement. Learn from the master!
French Defence expert GM Mikhail Ulybin
Mikhail Ulybin was leading the tournament alone until round seven with a score of 6.0/7. He had won a nice game against the talented Israeli player Nabaty Tamir in the sixth round. But Ulybin found his nemesis in Postny in the penultimate round. The Russian grandmaster had a completely winning position and a few accurate moves would have almost sealed first place in his favour. But he went wrong and before he knew it the game was already over thanks to a swift counter-attack. A tragedy for Ulybin. He lost his final round too, and finished a distant sixteenth.
However, the man of the tournament was definitely
Icelandic
GM Hannes Stefansson, the winner of the tournament
Stefansson and Postny both scored 7.5/9, but the former was crowned the champion thanks to a better tie-break. Hannes played the entire tournament with great consistency, scoring wins over strong players like IM Sebastian Plischki (2395), IM Lukasz Butkiewicz (2433), GM Tamir Nabaty (2597) and IM Pawel Weichhold (2399). He performed at a rating of 2687 and gained 13 Elo points. Most importantly, he achieved this in spite of suffering from an infection of his left hand on which he spent a lot of energy during the event.
“That, my friend, really hurts!”
After the tournament, Stefansson was naturally happy and relaxed. He had expected to finish second after Postny, but the tie-break turned out in his favour. In a short interview he spoke about his favourite game from the tournament, his daily routine and how he fought health issues to finish first.
Interview with the winner Hannes Stefansson
Below is Stefansson’s favourite game from the event:
Alexander Rakhmanov of Russia finished third with 7.0/9
Rakhmanov is known as a grinder of minute advantages. He plays on for long hours and has excellent technique to convert his small plusses. After the tournament when I asked him whether he was motivated to play in this fashion by the reigning World Champion, Rakhmanov wittily replied, “It should be the other way around! After all I am a year elder to Magnus!”
– Part two will appear shortly –
Pictures by Amruta Mokal
