Croatia Bulldogs – Hungary Hunters

After the unsuccessful debut in the Pro Chess League 2020 and defeat at the hands of the mighty India Yogis team, in round 2 of the Pro Chess League 2020, on January 15th, 2020, at 17:00 CET (08:00 Pacific Time), Croatia Bulldogs meet the team from the neighboring country – Hungary Hunters.

Round report and highlights follow.

Team Lineups

After both teams suffered defeats in the first round at the hands of India Yogis and Armenian Eagles, respectively, both managers were determined to extract maximum for this match and sent very strong squads. In contrast to the qualifier lineup, IM Sven Tica was absent from the Croatia Bulldogs and was substituted by a strong Czech grandmaster Peter Michalik. The Bulldogs rooster, therefore, consisted of:

On the other hand, Hungary Hunters also didn’t shy away from the confrontation and also sent a very impressive lineup, led by the (in)famous Czech number one, David Navara:

Despite a somewhat surprising choice of the 4th board (GM Trang Hoang Thang is the lowest rated player out of the 12 players in the Hungary Hunters Rooster – although this doesn’t mean anything, as we are about to see), with two 2600+ players and one 2700+ player, the rating gap was clearly in the Hunters favor and there was no doubt who was the favourite in this match.

Round 1

In the first couple of minutes of round 1, the situation looked very good for the Croatian team. Leon Livaić was outright winning from the opening against Banusz Tamasz, Peter Michalik was pressing against Trang Hoang Thanh, while Tuan Minh Le outplayed Peter Prohaszka quite convincingly:

Alas, this moment of happiness didn’t last long. While David Navara was beating Jadranko Plenča “routinely”, miracles started happening.

First of all, despite being a clear pawn up, Leon allowed a dangerous piece sacrifice and then lost his way in the complications:

Also, our first board played for a win but, unfortunately, crossed the mark and got punished:

Therefore, the match started quite badly for us and we were 3:1 down after round 1.

Round 2

Unfortunately, things didn’t get better for us in the second run. Jadro and Leon got dispatched quite convincingly by their strong opponents Tamasz and Navara. Tuan Minh Le provided us with a small glimmer of hope with his victory against Trang Hoang Thanh. Alas, Peter’s struggles continued, as he obtained a clearly winning position, misplayed it and even went on to lose in the end:

With the score standing at 6:2 and Navara still playing in two games, the outcome of the match was basically decided, although the guys continued fighting.

Round 3

Unfortunately, the third round didn’t go any better. Peter (who was pretty much on a tilt at this point) also collapsed against Tamasz:

Leon, who also suffered two consecutive defeats, was also clearly affected by it as he went on to lose a game he would probably win any other day:

Tuan Minh Le also fell to the mighty Navara and only Jadranko Plenča scored the consolation goal by beating Prohaszka. Therefore, after 3 rounds, the score was 9-3 and the outcome of the match was decided.

Round 4

The last round was not significant resultwise and it turned out to be the only round we wouldn’t lose, thanks to victories by Livaić over Prohaszka and Plenča over Hoang. The latter was particularly nice:

Thus, the match ended with a devastating score – 11:5. We hope we will bounce back this Thursday when we face Turkey Knights.

Video Recap

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