European championship (1)

Round 1 highlights...

Ozsakallioglu, Okan (2360)  -  Grandelius, Nils (2645)

30. b3? Nxe3! 31. Qxe3 Rxc2+ 32. Nxc2 Qxe3  0-1

Cheparinov, Ivan (2632)  -  Hollan, Martin (2347)

Black decided to go forward instead thinking how to protect own king.

47... Nxe4 48. Qc7 Re3

49. Rg7!

A great way to exploit the fact that black queen is tied for defense of c8 square. Black will now decide to try to get his advanced pieces back, but too late. 49. ...Nd6 50. Qc6 Nb7 (50.. Kb8 51. Nc5 with two threats: Na6# or Nd7+ attacking both; king and queen) 51. Rxf7 Qxf7  (Black decided to cease any further resistance; on any other queen move, 52. Nxc5 would follow) 52. Qc8#  1-0

Brzezina, Piotr (2307)  -  Donchenko, Alexander (2617)

Positon after 34. Rxa5 is sample how hard is to play against two bishops in completely open position.  34...Bd7 35. Na8?  It was worth of considering 35. Na6 to try to get knight back towards king side where things are about to happen. After few more moves opponents found themselves in following position;

40...Ba5!  Getting knight trapped on a8 for the rest of the game...

In this position white decided to exchange bishops at e6 and soon lost the a8 knight. But even retreat to (f.e.) h1 would not prevent him from next Ke7-d6 followed by Be6-d5. White still resisted for almost 20 moves but black's victory never came to question. 0-1.

Lagarde, Maxime (2606)  1-0  Filip, Andrei (2283)

23. Nxc5 bxc5 24. Rxe6!! 

Black could only resign here. On 24...Qxe6 he would loose the queen after 25. Re1. 1-0.

Saric, Ivan (2668) - Goroshkov, Maksym (2368)

White continued with weird looking 37. c6. Black decided to take the pawn with the rook and ended up in a forced sequence (but 37...Bc6 would, perhaps, be more resistable) 37...Rxc6 38. Bb5! Rc7 39. Rc1! Rxc1 (39...Rxb7 40. Bxd7 follwed by Rc8+ loosing the knight) 40. Kxc1 Bxb5 (40...Bb7 41. Bc6 Nc7 42. Bb6 Na6 43. Bxa5 Nc5 44. Kc2  and black is lost) 41. axb5

Black found himself in situation where knight is helpless against advanced white pawn. 41...Nc7 42. c6 Na6 43. c7 Kf7 44. Ba7 Black soon lost his knight, but managed to resist for 20+ more moves and finally had to resign. 1-0.