Report by Diana Mirza

This month I played in The European Women’s Amateur Chess Championships, which was held in Kaunas, Lithuania where I was invited by GM Sarunas Sulskis one of my dad’s good friends.

The area I stayed in was beautiful; the weather was really hot, ranging between 30-35 degrees. There were 9 rounds; one loss, 2 draws and 6 wins.

I lost against a Danish woman in round 3, the game was interesting, I was a pawn up in the middle game but later on we got into a complicated queen endgame and was unable to hold the position. In round 5 I played against 10-time former Lithuanian champion who was 83 years old! Game was quite interesting, where she sacked a pawn to get a good attack but I managed to swap off queens and eventually won the rook endgame.

In round 6, I played against Gailiunaite Saule, who came first. I drew the game, but there were chances for both of us, she had advantage on the queen side, whereas I was superior on the king’s side, but I had gotten into time trouble and a draw was a fair result. Before round 7 was a Blitz tournament where I came 3rd place in the Women’s. Later on in the day I played against Sulikiene, who had done very well in the blitz, coming second overall. I had been 2 pawns up in the middlegame, but then she managed to get into a drawn endgame where I had 4 pawns vs Bishop and 1 pawn, I had offered her a draw, she declined and made a bad move which changed the position, there was one move I could make to win the game, the rest were drawn, sadly I was unable to find that move, in the end the game was a draw. Second last round was against top seed and former two time Lithuanian Champion Malisauskiene Marina. I think that was the best game I played in the tournament, bringing all my pieces on the kingside to form a winning attack and picking up an exchange, I later on won the endgame.

I think the last round was the most nerve wrecking because if I lost I wouldn’t have gotten in the top 3 because I would’ve lost on tie break, therefore I had to win to secure my place in the top three, I finished the tournament with 7 out of 9, with equal points as first place but losing out on tie-break. The experience I had was amazing and I was honoured to have the opportunity to play in this tournament, I got great experience which will help me tremendously in the European & World Youths later this year.

Event results and PGNs can be viewed here.