Croatia Bulldogs – India Yogis

After winning the Pro Chess League Qualifier and qualifying for the 2020 season, on January 8th, 2020, at 17:15 CET (8:15 Pacific Time), Croatia Bulldogs had their debut in the Pro Chess League 2020. Our opponents were the members of the great chess nation and one of the favourites of the Eastern Division – India Yogis.

Round report with highlights follows.

Team lineups

Following the success at the qualifier, the team manager Vjekoslav Nemec decided to stick to the winning strategy and to reward the team that showed up at the qualifier by lining them up in the PCL debut. Croatia Bulldogs rooster, therefore, consisted of:

On the other hand, despite having two >2700 players in their lineup (Pentala Harikrishna and Vidit Santos Gujrathi), India Yogis didn’t include them in the mix. Yet, their lineup, consisting of:

still consisted of 4 Grandmasters with average rating ~2600, so there was no doubt about the role of the favourite in this match.

Round 1

Even so, the match initially started favourably for us. The first game to finish in round 1 was the following attacking masterpiece by IM Jadranko Plenča:

Unfortunately, it turned out this will be our only points in this round, although, with hindsight and bias, it can be said that it wasn’t fully deserved, considering the positions we had.

First of all, in his game against the Indian strongest player (former member of 2700 club) Adhiban Baskaran, Sven Tica obtained a fantastic position out of the opening. After missplaying it slightly, he still had several opportunities to maintain the balance and missed at least one direct opportunity to draw the game:

Unfortunately, this was not the only half a point that escaped our players. Leon’s loss against Chitambaram will probably haunt him for a long time to come.

Since Tuan Minh Le also lost his game against Pragnanandhaa, the Yogis took a commanding 3:1 lead.

Round 2

After a bad start to the match, Croatia Bulldogs didn’t plan on giving up the fight completely and turned the situation around in round 2, which they won with the 2.5-1.5 score.

Plenča, Tica and Leon all drew their games, while Tuan Minh Le scored a very attractive victory:

After this win, the gap in the score was reduced to just one point – 3.5:4.5.

Round 3

In round 3, a good trend continued for our team. Plenča and Tica drew their games against Pragnanandhaa and Chithambaram, respectively, while Tuan Minh Le built upon his previous success with this beautiful game:

Unfortunately, the Yogis managed to keep the 1 point lead. In yet another double fianchetto, after being significantly worse, Livaić managed to obtain a better position, but , being short on time, he fell under a strong attack. In mutual time trouble, Adhiban missed a simple victory, but Leon made the last blunder in a dead drawn position….

The score, therefore, after 3 rounds, was 6.5-5.5 in Yogis favour.

Round 4

Before the last round, there was still chance of drawing, and even winning the match.

Alas, our hopes were quickly dashed by Rameshbabu Pragnandhaa, who never allowed Sven Tica to get out of the opening:

Leon and Jadro drew their games (not without adventures), while Tuan, after first offering a draw and then refusing a draw, blundered in a promising position, but, alas, the fate of the match was decided as it was:

The Indian Yogis, therefore, won the match convincingly 9.5:6.5. I think that the final result doesn’t show how tense and close the match was and that it doesn’t reflect the true events happening on the boards. I may be biased, but I believe that with some slight luck, we might have not only drawn the match, but even win it. With point and a half from two Livaić losses and Sven’s game against Adhiban, we would have 8 points. Moreover, Yogis would enter the final round trailing, which would probably affect their performance.

Even so, there is no other way but to congratulate them on their performance. We can only hope we will do better in our next match, against Hungary Hunters, next Wednesday.

Video recap

Full stream