XVII International Chess Open “Cittа’ di Gioiosa Marea” took place from 17th to 24th of July. Me and GM Igor Naumkin were not able to reach Sicily in time and got a half-point byes giving a kind of handicap to two other titled players: serbian GM Ristic and IM Aleksic. But during the course of tournament I managed to catch up and overtake competitors. The main event of “champion’s race” was the following curious game:

Solodovnichenko Y. – Aleksic N., Gioiosa Marea, 2011

Despite of Black’s extra pawn White is much better here. Logical continuation should be 20.Qg3! f6 (if 20…Kh8 then 21.Rd7 decides) 21.Bxf6 Rf7 22. Bd8 and Black suffers a lot. But instead I went for “winning” combination: 20.Bf6? gxf6 21.Rh4 f5 22.Qg3 Kh8 23.Rxh7 Kxh7 24.Qh4. I saw that after 24…Kg7 25.Qg5 Kh8 the move 26.Rd3 doesn’t win because of 26…f6 and Black has Qh7 next. But I counted on 26.Qf6 Kg8 27.Rd3 and completely missed that after 27…Rfd8 I can’t mate him by checks while 28.Rh3 is impossible because of mate on the first rank. This could be a big disappointment for me but my opponent resigned because he missed the same things!

Final results: 1. Solodovnichenko 7,5; 2-3. Alexic and Ristic – 7; 4. Naumkin – 6,5 etc.

I also managed to take 1st place in the blitz tournament beating GM Naumkin in final.

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