Have your chess and eat it too!

Winter chess fun in northern Italy

The time between Christmas and New Years is surprisingly one of the busiest weeks on the chess calendar. In northern Italy — in Arco, to be precise 5 km north of Lake Garda — a small and friendly tournament took place for the ninth time from December 26th to 30th.

In the four-star hotel "Palace Hotel Città", the 72 participants could, depending on their mood, enjoy a peppy espresso or a soothing tea directly in the spacious tournament hall for the seven-round tournament. There were two tournaments, in fact: an A-Open with 32 players and a B-Open with 40 players.

The combination of a hotel and tournament hall has many advantages, which are particularly important in double-round events: lunch and a break is still easily possible between rounds! The time control was 90 minutes plus 30 seconds per move.

A glimpse of the playing hall

Left: A look into the old town and behind it the castle of Arco (click or tap to enlarge);
Right: The winner on tiebreak, FM Alessio De Santis

An IM and three FMs were the favourites

As usual in such tournaments, exciting and sometimes back-and-forth games were the norm, including some oversights and blunders, which can be most instructive.

Here are some examples:

White is on move with a dominant position — he's in no hurry.

Black was surprised by White's last move of Rf8. Has he given up his edge? Stay calm and calculate: ... Qd8, Rf6+ Qxf6, gxf6 Bf7 and on the next move, Black gets the queen back with (b1=Q)! Mate can't be far behind.

And next a small test:

How could Black win?

Final standings

It was all Italians at the top!

1. FM Alessio De Santis 5
2. FM Giulio Calavalle 5
3. Alex Dobboletta 5
4. Andrea Difronzo 5
5. Marco Lezzerini 4½

The podium: Arbiter Mirko Trasciatti, organizer Cristina Pernici Rigo, FM Giulio Calavalle (2nd), FM Alessio De Santis (winner), Alex Dobboletta (3rd), Ciprian Lupu (hotel director)

A small Christmas market decorates the cityscape in December

In the castle of Arco are frescoes by chess players from another generation

To close there was a gala evening with a specially created chess cake (shown above), a blitz tournament and to top it all off, a raffle with a nice gift. Mark your calendars for the 10th-anniversary tournament next December!

All available games

Translation from German: Macauley Peterson

Links

• Official site
• Full results (Chess-Results)