My summer tournaments: La Plagne

La Plagne Chess Festival, French Alps

This summer I played in two OTB tournaments: “La Plagne 4th International Chess Festival” in French Alps and “Leyland Chess Congress” in Leyland, near Manchester, UK.

In winter La Plagne is a popular skiing resort, one of the biggest in Europe. In summer it’s much quieter but no less beautiful. Because it is a resort and not a regular village, there were pretty much no people staying there other than random cyclists and hundreds of chess players who came to play! It created that special atmosphere and a “chess bubble” that GM Alex Colovic recently wrote about.

And just after short 10-minute walk from the playing hall through the forest you can see Mont Blanc. Also, beautiful Vanoise National Park with long distance hikes is not too far!

There were three sections: Masters, Amateurs, and something in the middle called Accession — that’s where I was playing, between FIDE 1650 and 2000. Those sections were quite big and apparently it was hard to find a hall large enough to accommodate players from a whole section. So unusually there were six playing halls: two for each section, and you have to check on which board you are playing to understand where exactly you are playing. This created some confusion for me initially, but after a couple of rounds it was fine. My main playing hall was a cozy cafe/bar with great views and chaise longues outside!

The hotel where we stayed (used as a playing hall for Masters too) offered quite generous deals: it was possible to get a 10-people suite for 7 nights for just 700 EUR total (if there are indeed 10 people living there it will amount to 10 EUR (!) per night per person). There were just two of us, but since all the smaller rooms/flats were taken, we thought why not, and booked the large suite.

This was my first tournament in France and all announcements were in French (which I don’t speak). However, the arbiters were quite helpful and answered my questions in English to the best of their abilities. Also, the French Chess Federation doesn’t use chess-results.com site for publishing results and pairing: they have their own analog, which to be honest looks better than chess-results, but takes some initial effort to understand.

In addition to regular tournament games there were two simuls and a blitz tournament. People also played ping-pong, table football, petanque and other games to relax after chess battles.

Here is me before the start of the simul game against GM Jules Moussard (FIDE 2590) — he eventually won the Master’s section. It was my first simul ever! I lost, surprise-surprise. But it was fun and there was a Queen sacrifice from the GM:

Regarding the tournament games themselves: there were 9 rounds of classical chess, 90+30 for 40 moves and then additional 30 minutes. There were either one or two games a day.

We arrived at the resort just 15 minutes before the start of the first game — our train from Geneva had been delayed. After traveling on a long winding mountain road we finally arrived. To our surprise, when we opened the door of our 10-person suite, we discovered that it was already taken by somebody: there were clothes everywhere! We had to quickly come back to the reception and as a compensation they gave us a 12-person suite, the largest they had!

In the very first game, I played White against Philippe from Lyon, a strong 1900+ player. That turned out to be my moment of glory because I won the game in style and additionally Philippe ended up sharing the second place in the whole tournament of 70+ people, with the only loss to me! That was an encouraging start and I wanted to share that game.

Round 1: Veselov (1773) - Caffenne (1920)

First, the whole game as a GIF:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 — I decided to play Open Sicilian in this tournament, as opposed to my previous Grand Prix Attack escapades. In this I was inspired by Dan Bock’s post where he shared several ideas that improved his play.

2...Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 — Accelerated Dragon. I was happy to see this just because previously I had difficulties playing against it and hence watched a couple of videos on Accelerated Dragon: Yasser Seirawan's one and ChessDojo video by Kostya Kavutskiy.

5. c4 — Maroczy Bind variation. The idea is to stop d5 which is normally a liberating move for Black. That's the most principled way to face this variation, which is supposedly not pleasant for Black, given that Dragon players normally want fierce attacks and Maroczy Bind is more strategic in nature.

5...Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 Ng4

That's a relatively tricky sub-variation championed in the past by Bent Larsen. Again, I was glad that I watched Seirawan's video that mentioned it and the correct reply. So I wasted no time in grabbing the knight and retreating the Queen back:

8. Qxg4 Nxd4 9. Qd1 e5

And now I just remembered that Seirawan said that this is a move, and that he even played it before, but now he prefers Ne6. So now I am on my own.

10. Qd2 0-0 11. Bd3 d6 12. 0-0 Be6 13. Nd5 — now we finished our development and both have impressive knights in the center.

13…Bxd5 — Philippe decides to grab my knight immediately. 14. cxd5. Now the question is: should I do the same with Bxd4 and create this strange pawn structure for Black with two d-pawns? It looks bad, but because that d-pawn is supported by g7 bishop and it technically a passer, it may be actually not too bad.

14…Qb6 - a self-pin! After some deliberation, Philippe decides that he doesn’t like that pawn structure and decides to protect the knight.

15.Rac1 - take the open file, simple chess. 15…f5!? - this now feels like the first critical position of the game. What should I do here?

Interestingly enough, I faced three f7-f5 moves like this in three different games in La Plagne! After analysing them I realised that in all three cases it was possible (and often best) to capture with exf5. I never did! That’s three positions in question raising from different Open Sicilians — an interesting pawn-play pattern (I played Rc4, f3 and Bf3 correspondingly, left to right). A lesson for me here is to always carefully consider exf5 in such position, likely it’s a good move!

16. Rc4 f4 17. Bxd4 exd4 — now another critical moment, should I stop f3 or take control over c-file immediately? I am going for the c-file!

18. Rfc1 f3 — forcing the pawn push and preparing for future nastiness with Qg2 mate (at some potential remote point in future!)

19. g3 Qd8 — the Queen starts its way to the checkmating square. 20. Rc7 — taking the 7th rank 20…Rb8, a sad move. 21. Bb5! — my worst piece (the bishop) wants to reposition itself on e6, a beautiful spot, and become a star.

21…Qf6 22. Bd7 d3!? — giving up the pawn, but opening the lines. 23. Be6+ — bishop’s mission accomplished:

Now it’s starting to look rather grim for Black, but Philippe keeps it competitive and finds his counterplay eventually!

23…Kh8 24. R1c3! Qd8? — here I could have immediately finished the game, but I missed it… Do you see how?

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Solution: 25. Rd7! with the idea of doubling the rooks on 7th is deadly. I missed it, because I thought that 25…Bxc3 comes with the attack on the Queen, so I stopped looking further. But in fact 25…Bxc3 26. Qxc3+ is a check! And if Black plays 26…Qf6 to block: 27. Qc7! forms the Queen and Rook battery and the mate can’t be stopped.

I played 25. R3c4 instead, a decent move still. 25…Qf6 — now my tempo-gaining Rd7 move is no more.

26. Rb4 a5! — two Black pawns are hanging, but Black is working hard to destabilise the situation and confuse me.

27. Rb3 — staying calm, trying to make sure that d3 passer is not going anywhere. 27…b5 28. Qxd3+ b4. Now the threat is to simply trap my rook:

29.Qd2 Qe5 — the Queen gets to a good central square and attacks the e4 pawn. 30.Rc4! — unfortunately I have to retreat from the 7th rank, but it’s the right defence. Even though I am up a pawn and still in a good position, at this point of the game, I was starting to feel that the tide is turning and Philippe is getting confident.

30…h5! — here we go, he is starting the Kingside attack. 31. h4! — stopping the advance and making possible irresistible Queen exchange offer with Qg5: the Black Queen has no escape squares.

31…Rf6 — threatening to capture that very important bishop protecting against Qh3/Qg2# shenanigans. 32. Bh3 — I am saving the bishop.

32…Rbf8 33. a3! — I resume my operations on Queenside. 33…Kh7 — with the idea of Bh6, and ignoring my threat of axb4. 34. axb4 a4 35. Rbc3 R6f7 36. Qc2

White is two pawns up and position is relatively solid. But my pieces are on the Queenside, so Black is sensing the weakness on the Kingside and starts an attack with 36…g5 37. hxg5 h4!? — giving up another pawn. I thought that this was even better than Qxg5 for me and quickly grabbed the pawn: 38. gxh4 Rf4

Now it starts to look quite dangerous to me, I think I missed this rook move Now the threat is Rxh4, then I have to move the bishop and Qh2# — oh well. And if Bf5+, then Rxf5 exf and there is a nasty Queen check Qe1, which looks very scary.

But after some deliberation I realised that that Qe1 check actually only looks lethal, but in fact this whole line is a tempting trap!

39. Bf5+! R8xf5 — he goes for this! (if he doesn’t, I am still fine, defending and keeping the extra pawns, but it won’t be that sharp) — 40. exf5 Qe1+ 41. Kh2:

Now surprisingly Black has no follow-up, the rook is stuck and will be captured, there is f6+ threat, my pieces horizontally protect everything and Black is down a lot of material.

41… Bxc3 — going for the last trick. If I just take the rook, Be6 and my rook is lost. Then I have tons of pawns as compensation for the pieces, but my King is in a delicate spot, so I didn’t want to face that.

42. f6+! — with a checkmate threat of my own. (42…Kg8 43. Rc8+ Kf7 44. Qh7#)

42…Re4 43. Rxe4 Be5+ 44. Rxe5+ — answering check with check, and Black resigned: 1-0.