Amsterdam Open: R1 and R2

Express report

Hi! I finally arrived in Amsterdam yesterday to play in the Amsterdam Open chess tournament. Normally I only describe tournaments afterwards, when all the games are played and analysed and I can summarise things well. However, I must admit that I greatly enjoyed publishing daily reports in ChessGym chat on Discord while playing in La Plagne, France. So I decided to widen the audience a little bit and write a couple of express reports right from Amsterdam, when I am still playing. They may be somewhat raw and games analysis not verified by engines, but on the other hand it may be more frank and more emotional, so I hope you’ll enjoy it.

The long playing hall. Cheese?!

My first impressions about the tournament: it’s very well organised, seriously! The venue is a building of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences: a modern beautiful building, everything is nice, fresh and convenient. I also liked that there is a canteen where you can eat between the rounds, no need to go and fetch sandwiches from supermarkets! The second interesting bit is tournament coaches! You can go and talk to them and analyse your tournament games. Of course, there are many people who want to do that, so you need a little bit of luck. The main tournament coach is GM Paul van der Sterren! The guy who wrote “Fundamental Chess Openings”, my favourite book on openings. He also participated in the Candidates once, so used to be a top-level GM. My friend Sasha who is playing with me in section B was lucky enough to get his game analysed by Paul!

Entering the building

Now some numbers: there are around 500 players (which makes it the largest tournament I have played so far). They are split in 4 sections: A, B, C and D. I am playing in section B (reserved for 1800-2000 rating). I am quite proud that I managed to get a place in section B, since I’ve only recently come back to “1800 club”. But on the other hand this means that most games will be against stronger players. There are 6 rounds, 2 games each day. Time control is 90+30.

I also liked that we were given nice bottles with Amsterdam Open logos, pens, reusable coffee cups and a little booklet with score sheets. It’s quite convenient to keep them all in one place and also have original score sheets instead of those horrible carbon copies.

The analysis hall where the opening ceremony took place also looks nice and welcoming with all greenery, an Amsterdam clock and chess tables ready to be used for analysis with your opponents or the coaches.

Analysis Hall

Now let’s get to some chess!

Round 1

I played my recent surprise weapon against 1. d4 - Albin Countergambit (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5!?). It definitely worked as a surprise and a time-draining machine: my opponent played the first four moves quickly, but then started thinking longer and longer. 10 minutes per turn, 15 minutes, and eventually he spent almost 30 minutes for move 9! He avoided all the typical Albin traps though. Here is this move: 9. Qd3

It followed my somewhat unnatural Qd8-d7, which insisted on trying to win e5 pawn and restore material balance. This Qd3 move is somewhat tricky. First, I didn’t feel all the poison and just grabbed the pawn: 9…Nxe5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5. But now he has a tricky pin: Qe4. And the threat is to win the pinned knight with f4:

How would you defend against that? Is it even possible or I am already lost? Not 100% sure, I haven’t analysed with the engine.

I considered Qe6 (unpinning), Qf5 (unpinning and attacking) and f6 (counter attacking the bishop). I didn’t like f6 because it was somewhat ugly, and I didn’t like Qf5 Qxd4! (seemingly this drops a bishop, but no, there is a fork f4!). Eventually I thought that Qf5 is still the best here and that I can play Bc5 there, activating my bishop and the Queen can’t take because of the tactic. So I played Qf5. But I missed that if Bc5 he can just play Qd8# — I saw it on the next move, but I already went into that variation. So what do I do after 11. Qxd4. I decided that if I just lose the pawn — I have no compensation, so I went for extra complications as my only chance and played 11…Be6:

But he just grabbed my b7 pawn, then put the Queen on a7, I had to give up an exchange and it went downhill from there, so I lost.

Surprisingly I was not very upset about losing this game, perhaps just because it was fun to play.

Round 2

In round 2 I had White and played 1.e4. We had a Tartakower Caro-Kann (1. e4 c4 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6 exf6) , the line I am quite comfortable with and had some nice wins in sparring games and online. I think Black didn’t play optimally in the opening and we’ve got to this position:

I’ve opened the line for my rook after h4-h5-h6 push, but how to continue the attack? Black just played Re7 which makes a thematic Bxg6 sacrifice pointless, at least for now. So I decided to just castle long and see what I can do next, maybe add some pawns and other pieces into attack.

But while I was doing all of that, I lost the momentum, Black developed well and started their own attack:

Here I thought that I should activate my “unused” pieces: the knight and the rook. So I played Nf4 (and for that I had to play Qd2 first, to support the knight). My opponent captured the knight, so at least I got rid of one of those powerful centralised bishops. But then he played Qd7 and suddenly Black has unpleasant Qd5 threat (attacking a2 and g2) and can also pin and exchange my d3 bishop:

Here I thought for a while, considering what to do with that Qd5. Can I just play b3 in that case, blocking the attack and additionally defending a2 with the Queen? Then I didn’t like a4 (even though in the post-mortem analysis we realised that it can be met with b4.

I also didn’t like that Bxa2 comes with check, so for example if I play Be4 to prevent Qd5 — he can play Bxa2 Kxa2 Rxe5 and win a pawn.

I thought that giving up g2 pawn to play Rdg1 and open one more file against Black King is a reasonable pawn sacrifice.

So eventually I played Ka1 which surprised my opponent. I think it’s a decent move though. Its purpose is to stop the checks, to be able to play Bb1 to additionally protect the a2, and to be able to keep the bishop from exchanges after Bf5.

The play proceeded: Qd5 Bb1 g5, starting the pawn storm. However, I realised that I can play b3 and block both a4 and b4 advances. He played a4 and I responded b4, blocking the pawns:

Still looks somewhat scary and I didn’t like how the game’s focus shifted from White attack to Black attack. But now it looks like I’ve stabilised the situation. Here, I think a good plan for Black is to play Nd7-b5-c4 and bring the knight into a great attacking outpost. But he played a strange move Qc4?! - which just takes away that square from the knight and doesn’t do much. I played Re1 improving my rook and pinning the bishop and he played Nd7.

Here I spotted that the Queen is running out of squares and I can force a draw with Bd3 Qd5 Be4 Qc4 Bd3 etc. I was considering Bd6 forcing the rook to retreat (and Ree8? is bad because of Qh6! Nf8 Bxf8 and Qxh7+ breaking through). But Rf7 Qe3 Re8 looks fine for Black, they defend everything and the situation around my King is still not very pleasant, plus I can’t move my Queen away from protecting c3 in that situation. I was also considering Bd6 Rf7 a3, trying to sac the rook on e6 and play Ba2 for a pin, that that a3 move leaves b3 unprotected.

So, after all, given that I had around 20 minutes less on the clock I decided to force repetition and take a draw here. It feels a little bit like I chickened out and my opponent was very happy with the draw, but I still think that it was a practical decision.

What do you think? Would you continue playing in that position? What would be your plan?

OK, so today it’s 0.5/2, not very inspiring, but I got my first half a point and looking forward to tomorrow games!

A Lichess study with all my games can be found here

And finally a photo of me and Sasha, I am wearing a ChessGym hoodie!

Me and Sasha before R1

Thanks for reading and see you in rounds 3 and 4 tomorrow!