The 2022 CCC Fall IM Norm Invitational was already to be my third, and I made sure to draw from the lessons learned in those two earlier tries when getting ready for this one. My first main takeaway from the unsuccessful past attempts was that I had focused too exclusively on openings ahead of other areas of the game. This time I made it a daily habit to solve calculation exercises every day in the weeks leading up to the tournament, so that even if the opening stage was not ideal, I would be sharp and ready for the battle ahead. Not to give the wrong idea, I did go in with several opening surprises ready to unveil, but also made it a point not to neglect other areas of the game.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I also observe now that in the past invitationals I had tried to plan out the desirable results game-by-game, eventually leading to a norm-worthy score. This fact led to an accumulation of stress after one unfavorable result, which thereafter contributed to several losses in a row, spoiling my tournaments. I bounced back both times to finish with a decent result, but this time I was not planning on settling for reasonable and needed to change what didn’t work in the past.
With three IM Norm and three GM Norm sections, the Charlotte Chess Center was breaking their own record for largest Norm Invitational round-robin in U.S. history! Going into the event, I figured that anyone in the field – including myself – had a decent chance of performing spectacularly. My strategy was to take it one day at a time, as no game was out of the realm of possibility for me to win, and see how my performance developed. In this respect I was lucky to be placed in the IM E group, as all players in the section were similarly rated. In both of the other IM Norm groups, though, there was at least one very strong invited player standing head and shoulders above the rest of the field who would be difficult to do better than draw against.
Without further ado, let’s get right into the action!
ROUND 1
Round 1 saw me paired with the white pieces against FM Sriram Krishnakumar, who I had played with the same configurations in early 2020. There I struggled to draw against his Arkhangelsk and was planning to avoid it on this occasion. Before even reaching my planned continuation, however, he surprised me with an early development of his dark-squared bishop, which he had never played before. It seems as though he had prepared the system in quite thorough detail for this tournament, though, as he also tried it in the all-important final round. In that game his opponent was ready and went for a critical try, winning the game and thus getting an IM norm.
In the game at hand, I could recall looking at the system – as it turned out, in a somewhat different version – before, for use with the black pieces at that, but was unable to come up with the most challenging continuation. Instead, I went for a natural looking way of playing that was quickly met by a consequent pawn sacrifice. I did not take him up on this generous offer, as I felt the piece activity he would gain in return for the missing button would offer sufficient compensation. The game soon transitioned into a fairly dry opposite-colored-bishop middlegame where the computer saw a small advantage for my side, but in practice it wasn’t likely to lead to much. I offered an early draw on move 16, which was eventually accepted.
At the time it didn’t feel good to “waste” a chance at the white pieces in such a way, but nevertheless a draw is not a loss! After being surprised very early on by his opening choice I spent a fair amount of time, and in the end, I don’t feel that the resulting fast draw was a terrible result. It just meant I needed to step up the pace in the next few rounds.
ROUND 2
In the second game I was paired against one of the invited players, Hungarian IM Attila Csonka. I felt this would be an important game to win, as my opponent was one of the older players in the field and had definitely not been playing his best chess recently. The afternoon of the game I changed my choice of opening variation to target this fact – instead of playing a long, maneuvering game, where his classical knowledge of the opening would have a better chance of showing itself, I decided to go for a sharp, concrete variation against his Taimanov Sicilian which, coincidentally, he doesn’t have a good score against.
The opening of this game went quite well, as he chose a subpar variation in what seemed like an attempt to confuse me and get us both into unfamiliar territory. It didn’t work out well for him, as by playing simple, natural moves I was able to develop my attack while he was still stuck developing his pieces. My play was far from perfect, but good enough to reach a position where my opponent needed to make an uncomfortable choice – leave me with a permanently dominant knight on a beautiful outpost, or transpose into an opposite-colored-bishops middlegame where I would have very dangerous attacking chances, and the superior minor piece as well.
He chose the latter without putting much thought into the matter, and my attack soon became a powerful onslaught. The key sequence came on moves 23-24, when I sacrificed a pawn to break open lines and stop him from consolidating. I could have kept queens on and attacked his dangerously open king, but he gave me an opportunity to liquidate into a clearly winning endgame and remove any complications from the position at the same time. With time getting low I naturally took this chance. In the ensuing ending I had an extra, dangerous passed pawn on the seventh rank, and did not take long to convert, winning when he blundered a simple tactical shot in an already lost position.
This victory – one of my best efforts to date – got me off to a good start after a less than ideal first round, and also proved to be easily my best effort of the tournament. It’s always nice to have something good to look back on after a strong performance!
ROUND 3
Heading into Round 3, however, there was no time for such thoughts, as I was paired with the black pieces against IM Dante Beukes, the #1 player from Namibia. I was primed and ready for an early surprise – the first move 1.e4 e5, which I had only used sparsely in the past, and without much success. I had several well-prepared possibilities ready for use against each of his main lines of choice – the Scotch and Spanish – but, of course, as a spur of the moment decision when faced with an unexpected opening, he went for an option that hasn’t featured as prominently in his repertoire recently, the Italian. I had not focused on this system as much as some others but had anticipated the possibility of its coming up and managed to survive the opening in quite decent shape.
After the beginning phase of the game, though, I began to flounder, somewhat carelessly going for a plan of attack that I knew to be good in similar positions. This time, to my misfortune, white was ready with quick action in the center, which prevented me from finding the time to launch an attack against his king. White’s powerful play led to the complete and utter isolation of my two knights, after which I knew it would be a long, hard slog to climb back into the game. Indeed, his position remained dominant throughout the early middlegame, and despite giving me one chance at counter play – and a serious one, at that – he remained more or less in control of the game for the majority of the proceedings.
My main hope, as the game continued and his advantage remained unabated, was the fact that his time on the clock had dropped below one minute. This is a dangerous situation to be in, particularly in a position that is far from clarified, and I grabbed a chance to complicate with a messy piece sacrifice. It was far from sound but succeeded in creating a mess where white needed to calculate accurately to reach victory. With only seconds to reflect my opponent failed to come up with the right solution, missing two chaotic paths to victory and instead going down in flames.
Needless to say, this is not a victory I am particularly proud of but coming back from tough situations is another art altogether. Without getting ahead of myself, it is fair to say that this was far from the last time I eventually won a position I should have lost in this tournament!
ROUND 4
Round 4 saw me taking the white pieces against Turkish WIM Sila Caglar. Before this game I figured – but was not certain – that victory would bring my live rating over 2300, thus securing the FIDE Master title, but tried not to let it affect my play much. I knew my opponent to be a very sharp player tactically, but somewhat lacking in other areas of the game. Her last tournament games in May resulted in a fantastic 130-point gain, but after that she hasn’t been able to find the time to play, perhaps due to college related responsibilities, as she recently started attending UTRGV. They sent several players to this particular Invitational in Charlotte, including head coach GM Bartlomiej Macieja in GM C.
In any event, the game at hand got off to a promising start, as my preparation went quite nicely, leading to a healthy opening advantage. Still, the game does not end after the opening battle, and when I was not able to properly take advantage of her slow play it came to nothing, and black was back in the game with only a small disadvantage. Soon thereafter she somewhat recklessly went straight for my king, which did have a serious destabilizing effect. I could have fended off her attack but missed a key defensive move, first allowing black full dynamic equality and soon thereafter taking a key piece away from its defensive duties, allowing black’s attack to become decisive.
The fire my king’s castled position was coming under necessitated a light jog by the monarch into the center of the board. The position was becoming critical, and her stylish double-rook sacrifice did not give me much reason for confidence. Surely, with a solid half hour to my five minutes, she would be able to find one of several paths to victory … Instead, this proved to be the start of my comeback, as she bypassed more than one winning continuation before giving away her biggest asset and allowing me to climb back into the game for good.
While I certainly recognized my fortune to be continuing the game, it was also more than clear that her menacing minor pieces would be able to provide ample problems for my king to solve. Amidst mutual blunders with time running short, my monarch managed to reach relative safety on c1. Ironically, this very move, that seemed so natural at the time, gave black another chance to snatch victory. She missed this and another opportunity on the next move, instead self-imploding inexplicably. Suddenly it was her king that became the weaker of the two, and I was able to mop up with a mating attack in short order.
An incredibly tense battle that could have easily gone either way, but in the end, I came out on top. After checking with the arbiters, I was reassured of the fact that I had crossed 2300, thus securing the FIDE Master title. It was certainly a nice accomplishment and had been one of my goals in chess heading into the year, but I was well aware of the dangerous possibility of becoming complacent with my fast start and took steps to ensure that this didn’t become a reality. There were bigger fish to fry, as such a good chance to fight for the IM norm – a fast start with 3½/4 – does not come around every day!
ROUND 5
In Round 5 I was to come up against a friend of mine – Harshid Kunka – who was playing in his first norm tournament. He certainly seemed to adjust to the new environment better than I had, as with a decent 3/4 start he seemed poised to fight for a norm. Of course, he had several obstacles to get through first. As the game got underway my work on the morning of the game paid off in a big way, as I was able to blitz off the first 18 moves of my preparation. On the 19th move, however, he went for an exchange grab – therefore getting me out of my knowledge. Somehow, I had neglected to look at the most obvious continuation and immediately recaptured with the wrong piece, getting myself into big trouble.
Half an hour was enough for me to come to terms with the difficulty now inherent in my position, but eventually concluded that I would be able to escape into an endgame in which I would have at least full compensation for the invested material. My offer of a queen trade was met with incredulity by the computer after the game, and it pointed out a decisive combination from white that neither of us had even considered. A narrow shave … After escaping into an endgame my position was more than sound, and I even had quite serious chances to press for the win. I overestimated white’s extra material, though, and went for a quick forced draw.
I felt, and still feel, that drawing with the black pieces against a direct rival was a very fair result – particularly considering his potential combination that could have led to disaster – and one that left me with plenty of chances in the rounds to come.
ROUND 6
In Round 6 I was faced with familiar opposition – Alperen Kanli was my first opponent in my very first Invitational. In that game I went for an exchange Caro-Kann in an attempt to avoid theory and simply play. I ended up getting a good position but handled it uncertainly. This time around I decided to go in for a theoretical discussion against his classical Caro-Kann, as I felt that his treatment of the ensuing positions was far from ideal. Indeed, after a short theoretical scuffle with errors traded, I found myself in a permanently better major piece endgame.
Despite this fact, I handled the simplified position a bit too loosely. My kingside expansion was premature and gave him the targets he needed to generate adequate counter play. Black played well for a time and yet, on the verge of securing a deadlock, I was given one more opportunity to grab a critical victory. Sadly, I misevaluated the position that could have arisen after further simplification as being drawn, when in fact I had enough resources to break through. I decided to keep more pieces on the board in an effort to retain winning chances, but after this critical oversight I simply didn’t have anything to work with.
A disappointing game not to win, as my position was especially promising after the first 20 moves, but I simply wasn’t up to the task, and he defended well, for the most part.
ROUND 7
There was nothing to do but move on to Round 7, another critical game where I was facing FM Liam Putnam, the only other player to succeed in reaching a score of 4½/6, with the black pieces. Naturally a victory would be ideal, as it would further my own chances for a norm while ending his, and I felt I could be well on the way after my opponent was visibly surprised by my choice of the Grunfeld.
Even so, my opponent composed himself remarkably, and chose the single variation of the Grunfeld that I had failed to study before the tournament, and for a simple reason, at that. In printing out my original analysis I found I had forgotten to analyze the line at hand. After later correcting this error, I never printed out an updated version to learn, and thus never studied the line in any depth. Needless to say, I could not remember the correct way of playing, and thus due to a simple clerical error I found myself in a gloomy situation after only 25 moves of play, down a clear pawn in an endgame.
I had plenty of reason to be upset with myself, but instead threw myself into the grim defense with all I had, trying to make it as hard as possible for him to convert the clear endgame advantage. His slow, methodical play led to serious progress after a mistaken rook maneuver on my part allowed him to accelerate the activation of his king by several moves. This fact gave him the possibility of executing a clear winning maneuver. Seeing the clear winning strategy after the game, I begin to realize exactly how much had to go right for my tournament to end in success …
With time running low white first overlooked the clear win, and then missed a nice little trap on my part. This led to the reduction of pawns by one pair, thus easing my defensive task tremendously. For quite a while the game remained stuck at an impasse, with my opponent’s extra pawn negated by the lack of pieces remaining on the board. I felt the game was heading towards an easy draw.
My opponent, being a strong player, found ways to pose me problems down to the last move. Though I had his king cut off, his offer to trade down even further into a pure bishop endgame was consequent – either I had to acquiesce to the risky liquidation or allow his king to enter deep into my position. I decided to opt for the former, as I judged the ending to be drawn, as none of white’s forcing resources seemed to lead to their goal. I still believe this judgement to be the correct one, but my execution in the game was far from ideal, giving him one final chance to grasp certain victory.
On this occasion, my fortune held out. He miscalculated the winning possibility, playing slowly instead, after which I was able to advance my own passed pawn far down the board, making it too dangerous for him to seek winning chances.
A tough fight that I was quite relieved to hold in the end. I was certainly hoping to see some winning chances of my own in this game, but considering how much worse it could have been, I considered the draw to be a gift. Needless to say, I was far from happy to have drawn three games in a row but knew that I still had a chance if I could finish strong. After this game, my task and that of the other two prospective norm seekers in my section clarified – to reach the score for a norm, we needed to win our final two games.
ROUND 8
I went into Round 8 with this mindset, and recognizing that my opponent Ethan Sheehan, while quite dangerous on a good day, was not having one of his better tournaments in Charlotte. Having the white pieces also allowed me to steer the game in the direction of my choice. I decided to choose the rare 6.Nb3 against his Najdorf Variation, as I felt there was a good chance he would go wrong in the early moves, and even if he found the correct continuation I consider the ensuing positions to be complicated enough to offer winning chances.
He surprised me in the early moves, with a somewhat dubious but far from bad continuation that I had failed to prepare properly against. As a result, I played quite poorly out of the opening, and managed to “achieve” a lost position on the fifteenth move! I had few prospects and continued on with the main goal of untangling my pieces so as to continue the fight. His play was effective for quite a while, though he missed several superior methods of converting his advantage, thus allowing me to prolong the battle a while longer.
Despite mutual mistakes, my opponent was able to keep control of the game the majority of the time. My position was getting desperate, and I sought to find a way, any way, of creating complications and making the position somewhat more chaotic. Seek and ye shall receive, and indeed, for the small price of a pawn I managed to bring several of my pieces back to life, while introducing serious pins and threats against my opponent’s position at the same time. While it was a good feeling after three hours of torture, I recognized that with best play my opponent could still wrap up a well-deserved victory, his first of the tournament at that.
Instead, what happened next was truly shocking. By choosing the worst possible way to capture one of my pawns he allowed my final remaining pieces to spring to life, bringing my position back from the brink of death in one move. The computer’s screams of -7 faded, and my position was already objectively superior. Faced with such a turn of events my opponent was not in any shape to put up further resistance, blundering heavily and deciding the game on the spot.
After winning from such a miserable position, it was hard to help thinking that Caissa must be on my side. There was clearly work to be done in the first stages of the game, but for now all I could do was enjoy the victory and thank my lucky stars I was still in with a chance for the decisive encounter the next day. After some deliberation regarding opening choice I decided to go for my trusty Sicilian, despite the chance of a drawish position after 3.Bb5+. It felt right to go back to what I know best for a must-win game.
ROUND 9
Round 9 was to be the decisive game for me and the other norm seekers, who had succeeded in winning the eighth round as well. I was to take the black pieces against IM Roberto Del Campo, who I knew to be a tricky old hand. In our last encounter he had summarily outplayed me in a 3.Bb5+ Sicilian, which I was also expecting to face on this occasion as well.
Instead he went for an old favorite, the 6.Bg5 Najdorf, which took me aback. Needless to say I welcomed the sharp positions on this occasion, and was ready to use some of the knowledge I had picked up before my fifth-round game that had gone unused on that occasion. Faced with an unusual move order in the opening I went for a natural looking continuation that seemed set to transpose into normal main lines. My opponent failed to punish me, quickly following with my plans, and we soon reached the tabiya of my line of choice.
I now recognize that I may not have chosen wisely, as my opponent had a chance to liquidate into a very dry opposite-colored-bishops endgame by force, thereby sucking much of the life out of the position. Fortunately for me he decided to not opt for this course of action, instead keeping queens on, presumably in an attempt to further his own attack. He had misjudged my attacking potential, though, and I soon began to work on developing my serious initiative.
Recognizing the danger of my operations, my opponent spotted what seemed to be a promising exchange sacrifice, allowing him to escape into a favorable endgame. I had seen the idea when entering into a pawn sacrifice four moves earlier, and also found the simple refutation of his combination, picking up his queen for insufficient compensation and winning the game soon after.
After such a quick finish I was in a state of disbelief. I had finally played a more-or-less clean game in the final round and managed to come out of the tournament with a norm against all odds! None of the other IM Norm sections saw any norm seekers achieve their goal, but IM E made up for it, producing THREE norms out of seven seekers! FM Liam Putnam and Harshid Kunka were the others to reach 7/9. I find it quite poetic that two young players from Texas achieved the FM title and got their first IM norm in the same section of the same tournament.
FM Max Gedajlovic achieved an IM norm in GM C, though he will certainly not be happy to have missed out on a GM norm after a superb 5½/7 start, and several missed chances in the final game. IM Justus Williams achieved his maiden GM norm in GM B, particularly impressive as he suffered a tough loss in the 6th round, only to bounce back with a 2½/3 finish to make the mark after all! Finally, in GM A FM Jakob Fus achieved his final IM norm, a nice consolation prize though he certainly can’t have been happy with his final performance, starting with an undefeated 4½/7 before losing his final two games.
This was certainly a very memorable tournament for me, as I achieved both my first international title and my first norm moving toward the next rung on the ladder. There can be no question that the value of coming back from difficult positions came to the fore in Charlotte. Luck, as they say, favors the prepared, but I think I’d prefer not to test that theory quite so much next time around. I’ll be hard at work tightening up my play so the next tournament isn’t quite as dramatic!
With Peter Giannatos of the Charlotte Chess Center receiving the hard-earned IM norm.
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