European Championship 2012 - 3rd round

During the tournament our daily schedule looks like this:

8:00 Waking up

9:00 Breakfast

10:00 – 14:00 Preparation. Narrowing down our choice of opening by checking the most recent MegaDatabase and analyzing the best variations with computer. Ideally I can prepare up to move 10-14

15:00 Start of the round

19:00 – 20:00 Finish of the round

20:00 Dinner

22:00 – 00:00 The pairings are available for the next round so we can have a quick look at our opponents’ games to see what we need to prepare next morning… We also check the results and most interesting games of other Hungarians and the top boards.

Me in front of Novotel Plovdiv, the venue of EICC 2012

Today I lost my game with Black against Alexander Yakimenko (2223) from Russia. My preparation for the Queen’s gambit declined varition was very good and again my home analysis appeared on the board. The first new move to me was on move eleven but that was bad so after that I even had a small advantage. Later my opponent started to push against my kingside and I started to see phantoms – he had nothing but I made mistakes in my calculations and my position has collapsed.

All in all I’m still optimistic about my play. In the first game I was always a bit worse and I had no realistic chance to score even half a points. In the second game the draw was possible and now in the third I had the better position at some point. OK, it’s still 0/3 but there are eight more rounds to go, and the most difficult opponents are in the first few rounds, so it can only get better!  J

The sensation of the day was Jozsef’s second draw against an international master, this time with the Black pieces. In a 5 hours long nerve wrecking game first he simplified to a drawn endgame then he miscalculated in time pressure but finally he managed to save the draw in a completely lost position. I couldn’t believe my eyes, neither poor IM Smirnov. Congratulations!

Jozsef saved a draw after an epic struggle

Hungarian top GM Csaba Balogh had a draw today

GM Tukmkov helps GM Mamedyarov to understand why he couldn't beat the 300 points weaker IM Filip Lucian