3/9/2022 – The Italian Spring Tour 2022 features four strong tournaments. One of them is the 1st Grandiscacchi Cattolica International which ended with an Indian double victory. After nine rounds seven players shared first place with 6.5/9 each, but S.L. Narayanan (pictured) had the best tiebreak and won the tournament. Praggnanandhaa finished second. | Photo: ChessBase India
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If you want to play chess in Spring 2022, Italy might be the place for you, and not only because of the weather. After all, the Italian Spring Tour 2022 offers four tournaments, which will be played in March and April: three open tournaments and one invitational for a total prize fund of almost 20,000 euros. The tournaments are played in Cattolica and in Bassano del Grappa. Cattolica is a seaside resort on the Adriatic Sea, not far from San Marino, Bassano del Grappa is north of Venice and Padua.
The tour began with the Cattolica Open which was played from 1 to 8 March. From 10 to 14 March an invitational tournament with two groups, a grandmaster group and an IM group, will take place at the same venue, the Hotel Kursaal. Invited grandmasters will play in the GM group, players with a rating of 2300 to 2499 can apply to take part.
Two grandmasters and two international masters are invited to play in the IM tournament, 14 more players who need to have a rating between 2000 and 2299 can apply to take part.
This will be followed by the 2nd Primavera Open from 10 to 14 March. The series will conclude with the Festiva di Pasqua Bassano from 14 to 18 April.
With 42 title holders, including 15 grandmasters, the 1st Grandiscacchi Cattolica International, a nine round Swiss, had a strong field. Almost 80 players took part.
After nine rounds seven players shared first place with 6.5/9 each. But S.L. Narayanan had the best tiebreak and won the tournament ahead of Praggnanandhaa and Baadur Jobava. The first three places received €3000, €2000 and €1500.
After the tournament Sagar Shah from ChessBase India interviewed the winner.
"I am happy to win the event. The tournament was well organized especially the hotel was very nice and I think I played well in the beginning with wins against Jobava and Azarov. In the penultimate round, I fought till the very last against Nesterov who defended well to get a draw, especially given the fact that he was under time trouble. For me, I thought it was very important to clinch the title but as you know, in open tournament you need a lot of luck as well to win the event and I am happy to win this one."
Final standings 1. Grandiscacchi Cattolica International
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The Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation with 5.Bf4 has a great balance between positional play and sharp pawn pushes; and will be a surprise for your opponents while being easy to learn for you, as the key patterns are familiar.
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