How i crossed 2200 Elo in the Dortmund Sparkassen A-Open

The tournament

The 49th International Dortmund Chess Days took place in the Westfalenhallen in Dortmund, from 16.07.2022 to 24.07.2022. Several tournaments were held in the same location, including the No Castling World Masters, the Deutschland Grand Prix, the NRW-Cup, the NRW-Cup-Women, and two opens. I played in the A-open, which required a national or international rating of at least 1900. The time control was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes, with an additional 30 seconds per move beginning with the first move.

My goals

My main goal was to finally cross the magical 2200 threshold and become Candidate Master, which in my opinion was long overdue. An IM norm would have been the icing on the cake, but it was not realistic, because I don’t think I am strong enough yet. Other than title and rating related goals, I wanted to play nice games, have a fun time, and meet friends.

Round 1: Time management struggles

I was the 62nd seed in the tournament and had black against an opponent that had a rating of 1913. Since it was the first round of an open tournament, I had no time to prepare.

I played the Nimzo-Indian, which I had played before, but which is not my main response to 1.d4. My opponent played a line I wasn't well acquainted with. I played in Ragozin style with 7. ... c5, which is probably not the objectively best move, but forced my opponent to show his cards. His response, however, wasn't too great, and I got a slight advantage out of the opening. In the middlegame, I spiced things up with 12. ... h5. Things then almost got out of control. I might have been a bit too creative but continued to search for counterplay on the queenside. My opponent opened the centre with 19. e4, which led to some exchanges and a position where my knights were stronger than his bishops. After some more moves and horrible time trouble on my side, I managed to get a completely won position. I then didn't go for the best continuation but played 33. ... h3 instead, almost letting the win slip out of my hands. However, my opponent couldn't find the best response and I managed to emerge with a win. 0:1.

Round 2: First titled opponent

I knew that the second round wouldn't be easy. My opponent was Malte Colpe, an IM around my age with a rating of 2369. We played on board 13, narrowly missing out on the DGT boards. At least I would lead the white pieces into battle. I prepared some lines against 1.e4 e5, but my main focus was on the Sicilian.

As expected, he went for the latter and I opted for the Moscow. Colpe surprised me with 3...Bd7, and even more so when he went for the closed structure with 5. ...e5. When he followed up with a quick f5-break, I immediately took the pawn to prevent f5-f4. After twelve moves, we had reached a position quite similar to a game between Carlsen and Bacrot, but with pawns on a3 and h6 instead of a2 and h6. I went for 13. f4, which Carlsen had also played, but got a bad position relatively quickly. With each move, my position got a little worse, and in the post-mortem, it wasn’t really clear to Colpe or me where I went wrong. I eventually blundered a pawn, which led to a lost endgame, but my alternatives were already quite bad. Instead of passively trying to defend a sad position, I went for some swindles, but my opponent easily deflected my meagre threats. 0:1.

Round 3: Fighting back

After a loss, it’s usually difficult for me to recover psychologically. This time it was easier though, because my defeat in the previous game was not due to a stupid blunder. For this reason, I didn't struggle to bring my a-game to round 3. My opponent was another guy about my age with a rating between 1900 and 2000, and I had black. Expecting 1.e4, I prepared for the Caro-Kann, but all the information that I could gather from his games was more or less outdated, which was confirmed by my opponent later.

He went for the advanced variation against the Caro-Kann, and I mixed up my move order and got a worse position out of the opening. However, my opponent couldn't capitalise on this advantage, and after 15. h4, I started to claw my way back into the game. He missed the tactical shot 18. ... Bxb4+, but still had several chances to stay in the game, which (luckily for me) he didn't find. I got an advantage and easily converted it by trading down into a minor piece endgame. 0:1.

Round 4: My first >2400 Scalp

Going into the preparation for the 4th round, I expected the game to be even more difficult than in the 2nd round. My opponent was the young FM Niklas Schmider. His great tournament results in the last year and him not claiming the IM title despite several norms are a clear indicator that he wants to become GM.
I got white again against a stronger opponent and mainly prepared for the Sicilian.

Schmider slightly surprised me with 1. ...e5 and then went for the Archangelsk in the Ruy Lopez. I left mainline theory with 11. Na3 and found myself in an inferior position surprisingly quickly. Luckily, my opponent invested way too much time in his next 20 - 25 moves. I completely missed 17. ...Ng4 and the tactical idea behind it. At that point, a weaker player than me might have already thrown in the towel, but I tried to complicate matters. Since Schmider was low on time, he didn't manage to find good enough moves and let me back into the game. After 29. ...a2, I played the cold-blooded 30. Rbf1, after which he decided to sacrifice his dangerous passed pawn to delay my back rank mating threats for a few moves. When we reached the 35th move, my opponent had to find a single move to stay in the game, but he played the very intuitive 35. ...g6?? and missed my puzzle rush tactic. 1:0. I managed to stay calm in the last phase of the game, but afterwards still couldn't quite believe that I had won.

Round 5: First game on DGT

I went into round 5 with a lot of self-confidence, knowing that I could hold my own against titled players. My next opponent would be the young FM Bogdan Bilovil from Ukraine. I would finally get to play on a DGT board for the first time in this tournament, a wooden board with wooden pieces – yay! On top of that, I knew that a win would finally push my rating over 2200. I basically recycled my prep from the second round and intended to play the Moscow against the Sicilian again.

The opening kind of went as expected, but 8. ...Qc7 came as a surprise. After some thought, I grabbed the centre and attacked his pawn on b5. At one point, Bilovil gave me an opportunity to gain an advantage, but I didn't realize that the idea I had thought about on the previous move would have worked out. Things started to go downhill quickly when I went down the wrong path on move 14 – I misevaluated something and got into a worse position. There was one sudden chance in the end to turn the tide, but I couldn’t find it and never got back into the game. 0:1.

Round 6: Playing an underrated kid

I was somewhat upset when I saw the pairings for the next round. It was unfortunate that I was barely in the upper half of the table with 3/5 and still had to play a kid with a rating of about 1700. It couldn’t be helped, though, and I had to make the best of the situation if I still wanted to cross 2200. During my preparation I saw that my opponent played all kind of openings, but 1. e4 seemed to be his main weapon recently. I had a hunch that he would go for the relatively new and trendy endgame variation with 2. Nf3 and 3.d3 against the Caro-Kann.

My hunch soon got confirmed. I avoided the endgame with 3...Qc7, but he played a line that made me uncomfortable. The resulting IQP position wasn't too appealing to me, and I never really saw a way to get my own play going. My opponent had a chance to get a great position but didn't find it. He almost blundered a pawn, found a way to get into an equal endgame, and offered a draw. I tried to play for a win but in the end i had to be content with the half point. 1/2-1/2.

Round 7: Debut for 1.d4

My next opponent was IM Dr. Christian Scholz. I wanted to play 1.d4 for the first time in a classical game and prepared for the KID. Again, a win could push me over 2200.

The game itself wasn't too special. Scholz surprised me with the Slav, and I kind of bailed out with the Slav exchange. However, he had to solve some problems, which he managed after using quite some time. In the end, I had a slightly better position but decided to offer a draw to finish the game quickly and to save some energy for the remaining rounds. After thinking for a few minutes, my opponent accepted my draw offer. 1/2-1/2.

Round 8: Finally crossing 2200

My opponent in this round was FM Alex Browning, my 5th titled opponent in this tournament. This was the first time I got to play with the black pieces against a stronger player in this event. I mainly prepared for the Alapin Sicilian, but kind of expected Browning to deviate.

He immediately surprised me by choosing the English. While I did expect some g3-setups, I wasn’t too familiar with the line he chose. On move five, I forgot to take on c3 and got into an uncomfortable position after some more inaccuracies. However, my opponent could never convert his advantage into something more concrete and burned a lot of his remaining time. After I prevented him from castling kingside with 15...Bg4, I started to feel some hope again. A few moves later, his king got into danger after he castled short. I took over the initiative and never gave it away. With an accurate sequence of moves, beginning with 19. ...Nh5, the downfall of white's position began. In time trouble, Browning blundered 23. Bxg6, which I countered with the ruthless 23. ...Rae8. After 28.Kf2, he offered me a draw. We both had roughly twelve minutes left on our clocks and I couldn't find a clear win at first. After calculating for a few more minutes, I managed to find a way and took the point home. 1-0. The win also meant that I had surpassed 2200 Elo for the first time! After the round, my friends and I celebrated that day by going to a schnitzel restaurant in the evening and showing our games to each other.

Round 9: Playing against a Dutch prodigy

The last round of the tournament really tested my mettle. I had already achieved my main goal and was already very exhausted after eight days of chess. You could say that my opponent for the last round was one of the most dangerous ones in these kinds of situations. I was paired against the Dutch prodigy Eline Roebers. She won a tournament in Untergrombach in Germany half a year ago, in which she beat Vyacheslav Ikonnikov in the final round. I knew she wouldn't be up for a quick draw and prepared for her opening repertoire, which consists of fighting openings like the KID and the Dutch.

Once the game started, Roebers blitzed out her first moves. She chose a line in the fianchetto KID, in which we followed a game between Howell and Jones. Howell, however, didn't take on a5, but I did, and we quickly got a crazy position on the board. Luckily, I remembered a tiny bit of preparation from two days ago because I briefly looked at this crazy line. I missed a chance to get a good position with the move 15. a3, which would have stopped Roeber’s dangerous pawns on the queenside. From the various options on move 18, I then chose one that wasn't great but at least I decided quickly. On move 23, there was another important decision to make: I took the pawn because I didn't think I had any counterplay in a closed structure. After some inaccuracies by me, my opponent went wrong with 27...Re7. Now the rook on b8 was undefended, and I took advantage of it by playing 28. a3. Roeber’s advantage quickly evaporated, and in time trouble, she simplified the position, which turned into a better endgame for me. The advantage wasn't enough for me to win though, and so the game ended in a draw. 1/2-1/2.

Summary

This tournament clearly was a huge success for me. I gained 28 Elo points and will be rated 2208 in Classical at the start of August 2022. Going toe to toe with titled players also is a nice experience. You now might wonder where my success came from. Part of it is a change in my time management. Realizing that you can come back from bad positions even against titled players was an eye opener for me. However, you must also be ready to fight without losing hope and make your decisions confidently and reasonably fast. As long as you follow that strategy you should have enough time left for critical positions and longer calculations if needed. Regarding the tournament in Dortmund, I will definitely consider coming back in future years. It will always hold a special place in my heart, and it has a special vibe to it because you play in the same room as very strong grandmasters or even legends like Vishy Anand. Lastly, I want to thank my club, certain online communities (especially The Chess Lounge) and of course my parents for their support.