Author: Axel Müller

In Mark Dvoretsky Endgame Manual every chapter features some Tragicomedies. In this round Gerald and I created our very own towards the end of our game. To be fair, we were both down to one minute. When we reached this position.

I just played Kd6??. How could black have saved himself?

In the last round all eyes will be on Ariel, who plays me with the white pieces (You can find the pairings here: https://caissachess.net/live/995). With a win he will end up shared first and pave the way for others to do the same.

Below are all the games of the round with John’s annotation of his game.

Round 3 of the Petrosian Open produced lots of interesting chess. David Faulkner gave a great demonstration of the power of bishops. And Larry demonstrated his knowledge of Queen’n Gambit Accepted structures. Randy showed us that there is always hope in rook endings. Artem and John gave us an example of not quite everlasting symmetry.

Enjoy the games. John provided the commentary for most games.

Round 1 of the Petrosian open treated us to some exciting games and all games were decisive. I leave it up to you to decide who had the rockiest start. Have a look at the annotated games below. John and I did the annotations.

Round four was characterized by unforgiving fighting chess—or lucky escapes. You decide for yourself.
Here are the games:

The current standings and pairings for next round can be found here:
https://caissachess.net/live/960

The top three players, overall and rated under 1800, win $50, $30, and $20 respectively. 

As usual, the Friday after the final round a 2h blitz arena will serve as a tie breaker.  

Some of the games demonstrate the dangers of falling behind in development. A subset of these games feature kings stuck in the center. Artem and Gerald found themselves in a very challenging and educational rook and bishops of opposite colors endgame. Artem was kind enough to annotate their game for us.
Enjoy the games:

Pairings and standings can be found here:
https://caissachess.net/live/960

I would like to thank Gerald, John, and Artem for annotating some of the games.

Gerald and John played on board one. Enjoy the game and the winner’s insights:

The other games with annotations can be found here:

Standings and pairings can be found here:
https://caissachess.net/live/960