Dresden Open 2014 - the winner's account (part 2/2)

Dresden Open 2014 – the winner's account (part 2)

By IM Sagar Shah

The first part of his report on the ZMD Open saw Sagar Shah in the sole lead
with 5.0/5 points. He takes up the narrative from this point.

GM Tamas Fodor Jr. (2485), a young talented player from Hungary, was my round six opponent

The game against Tamas was quite interesting: after a tense middlegame I was able to liquidate into an opposite coloured bishop endgame with an extra pawn. However he defended tenaciously and I was unable to convert. Tamas Fodor had a pretty good tournament scoring 7.0/9 and finishing third.

The mandatory post game analysis is about to start

I was 5.5/6 and still had the half-point lead. However, the next round was going to be crucial as I faced GM Ferenc Berkes (2668), the top seed of the event. I studied his games carefully and came to conclusion that even though my opponent was extremely strong, he was much stronger in the endgame and quiet positions than complicated middlegames. Of course he was pretty good tactically as well, but if I were to have chances then it had to be in messy positions.

Ferenc Berkes, the strong Hungarian GM scored 7.0/9 and finished as
the runner up by a mere one Buchholz point

When my opponent played the King’s Indian Defence, I was glad to play the Saemisch Variation from the white side. With opposite side castling the game became extremely complicated. However, I emerged out of it with a better position. The time pressure was his last-ditch attempt to complicate the play. And he did so successfully, as he got a golden opportunity to win the game. That was not to be, and the advantage came back in my court. And then something unbelievable happened.

White (me) has a clear advantage with two pieces for the rook and
also an outside passed pawn on b4

White (me) has a clear advantage with two pieces for the rook and also an outside passed pawn on b4. I was thinking what the best way would be to press in this position. My opponent got up and went to the washroom, I guess. I came to the conclusion that Ba6-e2 is the best move in the position. I touched the bishop, and while it was still in my hand I noticed that I had picked up the wrong bishop – the one on c5. I was completely shocked. There were around 10-15 spectators who watched this scene with complete disbelief. Without much thought I captured the bishop on f8. Now that I see this position I thank my lucky stars that there was a bishop on f8. If the bishop had been on g7 or some other diagonal, I would have simply lost a piece! I was shaken with the fingerfehler and decided to play it safe and took a draw. Incidentally: fingerfehler is one of those very useful German chess words (like zugzwang) and translates literally to finger error. The meaning is clear.

The draw against Berkes gave me the confidence that I could actually win the tournament. With 6.0/7 I was still ahead of the field by half a point.

GM Jens Uwe-Maiwald (2469) was my next round opponent. The game ended in a draw. It meant that Berkes and Fodor Tamas caught up with me on 6.5/8. Now there were three leaders at the top, but I still had an edge over the others because of my better tie-break.

Round nine paired the two Hungarians against each other: Tamas Fodor vs Ferenc Berkes, while I was white against the young Ukranian GM Martyn Kravtsiv (2572).

Martyn Kravtsiv (2572) finished eighth with a score of 6.5/9. However
he did win the blitz tournament with a mind boggling score of 16/17!

GM Ivan Farago (2428) is a strong Hungarian grandmaster who,
even at the age of 68, continues to play in many tournaments

GM Lev Gutman is known as a strong opening theoretician and a former second to Viktor Korchnoi

On the same day in the evening I found the other two leaders of the tournament sitting in a café.
The three of us enjoyed a nice talk before the crucial last round encounter.

I had a feeling that both the Hungarians would draw against each other. It meant that if I could hold Martyn Kravtsiv to a draw with the white pieces I would be the winner based on the better tiebreak. I went home quickly and prepared well for the game. I tried to choose lines with the right mix of safety and venom, just in case the other two leaders decided to play on.

As expected Berkes and Fodor drew their games in under an hour. My game with Kravtsiv was short and lasted for only 13 moves. But it was psychologically quite interesting.

With the help of this draw I was able to win the tournament thanks to a better tie-break.

Final standings

Radoslaw Gajek (left) and Thorben Koop (right) made IM norms at the event

On my right is the winner of the B category tournament Richard Zienart (1868),
on my left is C category winner Fedor Mishin (1801)

The prize winners of the A tournament

The top three winners: Tamas Fodor Jr. (third), Sagar Shah (first) and Ferenc Berkes (second)

Making my maiden GM norm was the icing on the cake

The ZMDI Open was one of the best organized tournaments I have ever played in my life. I enjoyed the German hospitality and I will surely come back to this city in 2015 for the XXIV Dresden Open. I hope I will be joined by many more chess players from all around the world!

Dresden is extremely beautiful with greenery and trees that you can find in every nook and corner of the city. Above is the Palais im Großer Garten, a baroque style park in Dresden with a castle in the center. The garden, established in a central location of the city in 1676, covers an area of two square kilometres.

All the pictures in this report were made by Amruta Mokal, who is a not only an enthusiastic photographer but also a professional chess player with an Elo of 2056 and four WIM norms. Photography is her passion and she loves to cover tournaments, capturing various expressions and emotions of the chess players engrossed in the game. She is also the wife of the author, Sagar Shah.

Links Official tournament site All games – (complete PGN, courtesy TWIC) You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.