If there’s one thing you can say about these Dortmund Chess Days, it’s that there’s no shortage of wild games. Perhaps the craziest game of the tournament so far was played today on board two of the B-Open.
Max Pick (photo) of SK Kerpen 64 burned all his bridges early in his game against Vincent Bouquillion. In a spectacular sequence of moves, Pick sacrificed both rooks for a massive attack on the French player. After a few inaccuracies by Pick, however, Bouquillion managed to pull himself out of the noose and even gain the upper hand when his opponent sacrificed one too many bishops.
The position, however, remained extremely complicated for both sides, and the players wound their way into an endgame with an unusual distribution of pieces: two knights and six pawns against two knights, a rook, and two pawns. This endgame was full of twists and turns that are difficult to put into words. Knights, rooks, and pawns were blundered; a claim for repetition of position was not made; and even the engine’s progress bar eventually lost track of what was actually happening.
Another contributing factor was that Pick relied exclusively on the time bonus for more than 40 moves. When Bouquillion finally found himself in time trouble as well, the game was about to be decided. Just as everything seemed to be heading for a draw, the Frenchman made a mistake at the very last moment and lost a game that certainly deserved to end in a draw.
Max Pick is now one of five players in the B-Open who have won all four of their games so far. Tomorrow, he’ll face the only FIDE Master in the field, Milan Kandic. Kandic confidently prevailed today in an endgame against Paolo Becciu. Dr. Martin Werner also won his game on board one and will face Vu Trung Nguyen Hoa of SC Hansa Dortmund tomorrow. The fifth player with a perfect record, David Belka, will play against top-seeded Tim Geweniger, who is close behind the leading group with 3.5 points out of 4. The group of pursuers, trailing by half a point, also includes the 2024 champion, Oleksandr Kasapchuk.