One of the most instructive and most complicated endgames I have ever played.
Tomic S. (1876) vs Krklec J. (2029), Closed Sicilian
2019 Croatian Cup Finals, Rd.1, 05/15/2019
My team, HAŠK Mladost, is playing the finals of the Croatian Chess Cup again. And I made the team again (albeit as a substitution). Last year I played 4 out of six rounds though, so this year I expect to play as much too.
In round 1 we faced a lower rated team (except on my board) and I got to play. Apart from myself, our team is three international masters and a fide master, one IM sat out this round. I knew who I was going to play in advance because we were able to calculate with almost complete certainty. I prepared for a long time, but mostly for the black pieces. I ended up playing white.
I decided to go for the closed Sicilian with a Grand Prix setup (f4). The opening went sort of ok, but I missed a chance for an early aggressive f5, which could have decided the game right away. Instead, I developed and maneuvered, but all that led to was a mass exchange and a rook ending in which we were almost equal (he was the one slightly better).
What happened next you should see in the video and use as an exercise. It was an extremely instructive pawn ending which made my head hurt.
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