The Best Games of a Chess Coach: Outflanking the Trompowsky

In today’s article of the „Inside the Master Mind: The Best Games of a Chess Coach” Series I would like to show you one of my first great wins against strong chess masters with a more than  2450 ELO rating. This game was played in 2006 at the strong Open Tournament in Razgrad, Bulgaria. Still in the second round I was chosen to play with the very experienced and strong, young chess master Momchil Hikolov, who had an ELO rating of 2450 at that time. Certainly, the game was expected to be a tough one for me, since I had to play with black pieces and also did not have much time for decent preparation, because tournament was set to be played in an intensive schedule with three or four rounds a day. Nevertheless, some time before the game, I remembered that my opponent likes to play Trompovski Attack after 1.d4 Nf6 and therefore I reviewed one very effective, dynamic variation, which I had prepared , in order to be able to play decent opening  and receive a good position with black. Although this variation is very popular for black against Trompovski Attack and my opponent was expected to be prepared against it, the thing I relied on was an interesting plan for blac, which I have not seen to be played in other games. The result of it is a very interesting and dynamic position, in which there is no specific theory to be applied and therefore both players should be able to come up with their own effective plan in the course of the game. So, when the game started, as I expected, my opponent played Trompovski Attack and I replied with my preliminary prepared opening system. The position became very interesting and my opponent obviously did not know how to continue in the variation I chose to play for black. As a result, I did not manage to cope with the situation and chose a wrong plan, which let me get an advantage by playing a few additional precise moves. After that, the most important stage of the game started. This is the time, when you have to turn your advantage into a win. Since this is known to be the hardest part of every chess game, I knew that I have to keep on playing very precise moves and gradually increase my positional and material advantages, thus eliminating the counter-chances of my opponent and turning my winning position into an actual win. In the aftermath, with many efforts , I managed to win this particular game as well as the whole tournament, and this win happened to be my first great success in a strong chess tournament with a lot of experienced and strong chess masters taking part. Here is the game that gave me the the courage and inspiration to continue to work on my chess career with even greater passion: