Tactics in the Tarrasch French ⎸Road to GM, Game 17

July 18, 2018 NHaselton Uncategorized

Hanging PawnsWed, July 18, 2018 11:10amURL:
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Stjepan Tomić (1851 ELO) vs Stjepan Špilek (1660 ELO), French Defense, Tarrasch
Marko Damjanovic Memorial, Round 2, 07/17/18

I played a very aggressive game in rd.2 of the tournament. My opponent was about 200 points lower rated, so I wanted to play chess, and not follow theoretical lines.

He went for the French Defense, and in the Tarrasch he chose the most passive line (taking on e4, Nxe4), after which he made a slight mistake and gave me an edge in the opening.

I didn’t want to play my usual setup in the game because I don’t have too many attacking and tactical opportunities, so I went for long castling. This meant giving up my opening advantage, but, luckily, my opponent gave it back right away. He played a slow move in a position similar to the Sicilian, where both sides should push to start attacking first.

I then pushed my g and h pawns up the board and got a nice attacking setup. It was a very interesting tactical game. He resigned on move 26.

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