Sitges is an expensive tournament, but, if you can afford it, I would recommend swapping the cold December English weather for the warmer alternative of the Spanish east coast. The playing rooms are almost directly above the beach at the Sunway Playa Golf & Spa Hotel.
329 players entered Group A, which was won by Indian grandmaster Abhimanyu Puranik with 8½ /10.
A late entry arrived from GM Leinier Dominguez, who wanted to push his rating a bit higher in order to qualify for the Candidates. In these deflationary times, however, there are easier ways to gain points than choosing a big Open in which most of the players are in their teens or early 20s and rapidly improving. When he reached 4/5, after drawing with opponents rated about 2300 and 2500, he decided not to risk a catastrophe and duly withdrew.
IM Jonah Willow was the top English scorer with 6/10, and though he slightly under-performed he did make a draw with 2611-rated GM Leon Mendonca. I noticed that, lower down, 12-year-old Billy Fellows managed to gain 66 rating points with his score of 3½, while 11-year-old Harry Bryant netted himself a handy 48 for his score of 3!
After a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in June last year, I am still learning how to control blood sugar levels. Sometimes I seem full of energy, and other times, well, it is simply better not to play that day! This will improve over time, and indeed did so a week later at Hastings, but at Sitges I only played seven games, scoring 5½ points and netting 9.3 rating points. It was quite a shock to discover that I was the oldest player of the top 180 seeds, and more than 40 years older than a great many of them! The average age of my opponents was just 20.
I'd like to conclude this article with an 'Arkell's Endings', played in round 4. As usual, I will annotate based on my live thoughts during the game.
Keith Arkell - Leon Fanninger
Sitges (4), 12.2023
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.g3 0–0 5.Bg2 d6 6.d4 Nc6 7.0–0 e5 8.dxe5 Nxe5
9.b3 If I can get away with this move, I like it because according to my 'hierarchy of pawns' an e-pawn is slightly more valuable than a d-pawn.
9...Nxf3+ 10.Bxf3 Ne4 11.Nxe4 Bxa1 12.Bg5 f6 13.Bh6 Be5 14.Bxf8 Qxf8 15.Qd2 Qg7 16.Bg2 f5 17.Ng5 Qe7
18.Rd1 To prevent my opponent from completing his development with ...c6 and moving the c8-bishop.
18...Bf6 19.h4 Rb8 20.Nh3 Be6 21.Nf4 Bf7
22.Bd5 I thought this would set more problems than the simple 22.Nd5 Bxd5 23.Bxd5+ Kg7.
22...b6
23.b4 I didn’t want him to bolster his queenside for free with ...a5.
23...Be5 24.e3 Bxf4 25.exf4
On the surface this appears to render ineffective my kingside majority, but actually I think this pawn configuration can be very powerful. My king will be well protected, while sometimes the break h5 is in the air, or if Black plays ...h5 then g6 can be a liability.
25...Bxd5 26.Qxd5+ Improving my structure with 26 cxd5 looks correct, but then he can easily defend actively from the second rank.
26...Kg7 27.Qc6
27…a5 Probably he was worried about a Rd3-a3 plan, but now Fanninger's position is becoming critical.
28.bxa5 bxa5 29.c5
29…Rb2 After 29...Rd8 (29...dxc5?? is of course impossible because of 30.Rd7), I intended 30.cxd6 Rxd6 31.Rxd6 followed by Qc3+, winning a pawn.
30.cxd6 cxd6 31.Qc3+ Qf6 32.Qxa5 Kh6 33.Qd5 Qc3 34.Qxd6
So I have won a pawn anyway, but it looks as if Black will gain enough activity to keep me at bay. However, I had some quite nice ideas up my sleeve...
34...Qf3 35.Rf1
35…Kh5? A few people said after the game that I had nothing if Black played 35...Rxa2, but I pointed out my intended reply 36.h5!, highlighting the latent power behind the structure f2, f4, g3, h4. Here are some of my ideas: 36...Qxh5?? 37.Qf8 #, or 36...Kxh5 37.Qe7 Kh6 38.Qf8+ Kh5 39.Qf7, forking the rook and the h7-pawn, and ready to meet 39...Kg4 with 40.Qxh7 (Not 40.Qxa2?? 41...Kh3, when I get mated by the Nigel Short king march (vs Timman). And if he plays a nothing move in reply to 36.h5 (let’s say 36...Re2) then 37.Qd8 renders Black's position untenable. The move played meets with quite a simple refutation.
36.Qf6 Kg4
37.h5!
37…Qa3 I expected 37...Qe2, to which I would have responded with 38.hxg6 hxg6 (Or the cheeky trap 38...Kf3!? 39.Qc6+, but not 39.gxh7?? Qxf1+ and mate next move!) 39.Qxg6+ Kf3 40.Qxf5, covering the b1-square.
38.hxg6 hxg6 39.Qxg6+ Kf3 40.Qh5+ Ke4 41.Re1+ Kd4 42.Qh8+ Kc4 43.Qc8+
1–0