In terms of rating average, we were the weakest of all ten teams. Hence, there could only be one goal for our team: to stay in the league. This would mean that out of ten teams, we would have to finish 8th or better. Fortunately, the league was a little bit weaker than in previous years, when several 2700 players were hired for the first board. And the captain's skills at drawing lots brought us in a good position: the matches against our direct opponents were all in the first six rounds, when we could play in the strongest formation (Arthur had to leave afterwards for a match in the Dutch league). This would mean that a good start into the tournament was absolutely vital!
In the first round, we played against the strong team from SK Zagreb. The match developed almost like a game of the national Italian football team: we did not concede many opportunities for the opponents, and several games petered out in a draw. One of them embarassingly fast. In particular, Arthur did not concede an inch against his 2650 opponent, Sergey Fedorchuk. After three hours, the first game was decided:
White: Bontempi, Piero (2360)
Black: Ivic, Mateo (2267)
The Black position is winning in multiple ways, but the mutual timetrouble gave us some reason for concern. Mateo kept cool and finished the game in style by opening the long diagonal: 29. ...e3 30. fe3: c5+ 31. d5 fe3: 32. Te3: c4. Now large material losses are inevitable. 33. Bc2 Be3: 34. Qe3: Rg3 0-1
A bit later, the score was 3:2 for Brda (one win, four draws) and only Darko Doric's game was still running. His opponent tried everything, opened the position, got a passed pawn... but Darko remained cool and not only repelled the enemy threats, but also placed a decisive counterattack in the last minutes of the round. 4:2 for Brda and an excellent start into the league, thanks to our successful catenaccio!
The next round saw another convincing 4:2 against the team from Pozega, which was like ourselves a relegation candidate. Then followed two hard-fought 3:3 draws against SK Rijeka and Duro Dakovic where the equilibrium was never disturbed significantly. Since the two teams were direct competitors for staying in the league, we were not dissatisfied with these results. Altogether, this brought us to six points in total (in chess, a team gets two points for a win and one point for a draw), a number that might already be enough to survive. Everybody was surprised by the splendid performance of the team, especially since we were stuck at three points at our latest presence in the 1A league in 2012!
The fifth round featured our match against Mladost Zagreb, who missed a player (Kronislav Hulak) due to severe illness and whose reserve had to leave Bol by the time of the match. So they showed up with five players only. However, the match was extremely close. After almost five hours, we were leading 2,5-1,5, but Arthur was suffering on Board 1 against a the strong Grandmaster Evgeny Postny and also my opponent tried to win a fairly equal endgame. Indeed, Arthur finally had to surrender, but on my board, miraculous things happened...
White: Sprenger, Jan (2510)
Black: Rusev, Krasimir (2547)
Black has been pressing for some time without changing the evaluation of the position as equal. Now, he tried 50. ...Rh1 and of course, I played my main trump and pushed the c-pawn. 51. c5 bc5: 52. bc5:. Now 52. ...Rd1 is the most precise defense, but also after the text move 52. ...Rh8 Black should not be in danger. However, after 53. c6! Rd8+ 54. Ke3 Rb8?! 55. c7 I barely trusted my eyes when Black played 55. ...Rb3 as if his life depended on the a-pawn.
56. Kd4! The Black position is now very difficult to hold and most probably lost. 56. ...Bc8 57. Re2 Rb7 58. Rc2 Rb6 59. Rc5 Ke7 60. Ke5 Re6+?! (60. ...Rf6, planning f5-f4, would have been a more tenacious defense, but Black's time was already very low.) 61. Kf4 Kd6 62. Ra5: Kc7: 63. Rc5+ 1-0 This turned out to be the decisive point for our 3,5-2,5 victory and was certainly the dramatic highlight of my play in Bol.
With that match, the goal of the campaign was achieved after just the half of the tournament and the rest of the league would just be "gallery play". Unfortunately, most of us did not conserve their form in the second half of the tournament, with one exception about which I will talk later. We lost 2:4 against the equally strong team from Sljeme Agroproteinka in round 6, and after Arthur's departure, we suffered defeats from the strongest teams in the league: Solin-Cemex, ETF Osijek and Liburnija. So we did not collect any further points and finished 6th. But what matters, ultimately, is the fact that the club will, despite the lack of sponsoring, play in the 1A league again in 2016! I am already looking forward to it.
P.S. A post dedicated to Rade's splendid performance will follow later. Live games can be followed here and all results are listed here.
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