Second preliminary round of the Sparkassen Online Open also with top-class players
In the afternoon, the 48th International Dortmund Chess Days offered the second chance to play their way into the final of the Sparkassen Online Open. 104 players tried their hand at "No Castling" chess and once again there was a grandmaster in the field: Alexander Bagrationi, who plays under the Israeli flag but has been living in Dortmund for 2 years. He took the chance to participate at least online in the Sparkassen Chess Trophy. He played a strong tournament and coped very well with the new mode without castling.
After five rounds he was in the lead together with Aaron Matthes from the Oranienburg Chess Club and it came to a direct duel. In this game, both brought their king to safety on the kingside. Bagrationi then discovered a wonderful tactic with the black pieces in the following position:
Here he found the strong continuation 26...cxb3! and thus surprisingly sacrificed his bishop. After 27.axb5 Dxb5 the Black passed pawn is indeed so dangerous that White cannot defend with his extra piece. This was followed by 28.Lg3 b2 and Matthes should have played 29.Ta2 after which 29...Te2! was planned and Black will anyway soon get his pawn through and win. After the move 29.Le5 Txe5 30.dxe5 Dc5+! 31.Kf1 Dxc3 0-1 the game was over immediately.
Bagrationi also won the last round quickly and thus won the tournament with a perfect 7 points from 7 games! The only player to finish in second place with 6/7 was Ashutosh Purohit of India. Again, exactly 5.5/7 were needed to enter the Top 8 and thus the final on 17 July.
Final table:
1. DizzasterFritz 7/7
2. King_of_THUNDER 6/7
3. signfelix 5,5/7
4. Arimin 5,5/7
5. Anti31 5,5/7
6. Teddy_the_turkey 5,5/7
7. TheRabbit233 5,5/7
8. p0k3rl0v3r94 5,5/7
Complete final standings and all games: https://lichess.org/swiss/TTOhLZAA
The final score is subject to cheating control, but the whole tournament seems to have been very fair! The games will certainly be analysed in more detail afterwards with regard to "NC Chess" and provide nice material to explore this chess variant. The tournament continues tomorrow, 12 July, at 2 pm with the last preliminary round. Simply register by 1 pm, please with brief details of clear names: https://lichess.org/team/sparkassen-chess-trophy-dortmund-2021