Draw after Petrov’s Defense between GM Navara and GM Blübaum in Poland

In case you have no clue what I’m talking about, check out this article: "Preparing for the Polish league Ekstraliga: Dipping into language learning".

Now, back to the current tournament

The festival consists of several open tournaments and one closed GM tournament. In this tournament, players like GM Nodirbek Yakubboev (Elo 2663), GM Chithambaram Aravindh (Elo 2723), GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek (2648 Elo), GM David Navara (2650 Elo) and GM Matthias Blübaum (2660 Elo) and several other GMs with an Elo between 2500 and 2700.

GM David Navara seems to be subscribed to tournaments with player names like Svane and Blübaum. They all (4 players) played in the Polish Ekstraliga, GM David Navara met GM Frederik Svane in Biel (even though they played in different groups), now, he and GM Matthias Blübaum have returned to Poland. Of course, them keeping encountering each other makes completely sense as they are all players on not so different chess levels and the countries Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland are all countries in the vicinity of each other. It would be more shocking if I would play at the same tournament or in a similar group as Matthias Blübaum, Frederik or Rasmus Svane or David Navara, really, or if you see me show up in some tournament in Argentina or Canada.

GM Navara vs. GM Blübaum

This time, GM David Navara encountered GM Matthias Blübaum after both also participated in the beforementioned Polish Ekstraliga. In the Rubinstein Chess Festival 2025, they played against each other in round 3 on August 18th, 2025 (Link to the Lichess broadcast). They summoned a Petrov’s Defense on the board, or rather, Matthias Blübaum responded to Navara’s e4 e5 Nf3 with Nf6 and started the Petrov’s Defense all on his own.

In this article, I want to dive a bit into Petrov’s Defense with you. First of all, the Lichess Master’s Database says that only in 12% of the games, players play the move 2. ... Nf6. It is still the second most played move right behind 2. ... Nc6 but that move has a probability of 86% of showing up in a Lichess Master’s database game in that position. In other words, it is relatively unlikely to appear on a master's board, but it can occur if a player is a 1. e4 e5 player with the black pieces.

The first time I got Petrov’s Defense on the board, it was most likely because I didn’t know better and forgot which piece I was supposed to move. This was a typical beginners move: “If I mirror all of my opponent’s moves, I can’t lose, right?!”. Actually, that’s the best way to lose the game as your opponent would be the first to checkmate your king. Unfortunately for beginners, there is a difference between playing Petrov’s Defense out of pure luck by copying moves and playing Petrov’s Defense because you know what you are doing. For this, I appreciate grandmasters who keep playing chess to give us some content on how we are supposed to play an opening we might be messing with.

White capturing the unprotected central pawn should make sense for our former beginner-selves still. But after that, Black doesn’t copy that move immediately! Nxe4 is a possible move, but it’s still only played in 1% of the games in the Lichess Master’s database. The alternative d6 is more likely to be played, i.e. it’s played in 98% of the games. White’s knight has to step back and then black is able to get a pawn back. The most played move 5 in this position would be 5. d4 but David Navara chose 5. c4. In the database, it seems to have a higher winrate as the more popular move 5. d4 but this could also be related to the relatively low number of games with that variation. According to Lichess, this variation is called Kaufmann attack.

After that move, Navara gets to position his pieces nicely in the board center while Blübaum gets Navara to exchange a pawn so that he can play against a black isolani on d4. The isolani didn’t appear to bother Navara that much. Blübaum offered to exchange the pawn with one of his own soon so that there was no isonali anymore to put pressure on for Black.

After that, they exchanged a few pieces until they ended up in an equal endgame. The game ended up in a draw.

Language funfact on Petrov’s Defense: Did you know that this opening is mostly known as “Russisch” (aka. ‘Russian’) in German? It’s very similar to what happened to the Ruy Lopez that is known as “Spanisch” (aka. ‘Spanish’) in German. We seem to be bad in remembering names and more talented in remembering nationalities...

And this, my dear audience, is how the number 2 player of the Czech Republic, GM David Navara, and the number 3 player of Germany, GM Matthias Blübaum, helped us with Petrov’s Defense, i.e., they showed us how the first steps of the opening can look like when they are played by someone who knows what to do and not by some beginner who just wants to mirror all the moves!

But be aware, if you play on not-yet-grandmaster-levels and you want to play Petrov’s Defense, also check out the moves most likely to happen around your level. While 5. ... Nxe4 is only played in 1% of the master’s database games on Lichess, this number goes up to 16 % for “common” Lichess players. That means, you should also check for moves that are likely to happen on your own level or around it to be prepared for what will actually happen in your board.

About the tournament for both players

After 3 games, they both have 1.5 points. Both got 3 draws; GM Matthias Blübaum got one of the draws against the only player in the tournament with an Elo > 2700: GM Aravindh. There are still 6 games to play for each of them in the 10 rounds round-robin tournament.

Powodzenia! Good luck (in Polish)!
Or in Czech “Hodně štěstí!” and in German “Viel Glück!“

You can find the tournament website here: Rubinstein Chess Festival 2025 website (bilingual Polish/English).