The European Championship Tournament has ended.
Roman Dehtiarov was crowned the winner; his only defeat came in the game against Emre Can (2546).
The final position is dramatic. Playing with the white pieces, Can has a five-pawn advantage. Even from earlier positions, this game was unwinnable for Dehtiarov.
Earlier
After nine rounds, the Polish players are playing second fiddle. Only Gumularz and Klimkowski feature in the main table, with just one defeat each. We’ll take a closer look at some of the Poles’ lost games, because alongside the unknown names are well-known players such as Piorun, Nasuta and Śliwicka. We’ve picked a few games at random and will show Polish chess players how to play chess properly. So as not to lose, of course. We won’t show them all, though; the most valuable ones will be in the Immortal tournament.
Klimkowski-Daniel Dartha 0-1
The most important Polish game. If our 19-year-old grandmaster had won it, he would have had the same number of points as the leader in the standings, and who knows… perhaps he would be the European champion today. As for the game itself, we have a winning position. The most important thing to do was to exchange queens. We did this by playing differently on move 31, 31.b3. Had Janek done so, he would have been Dartha’s worst nightmare. After the exchange of queens, no matter how Black plays, they lose. We show four variations. They might appeal to you. So our champion had a chance to win it. It’s a shame he didn’t rise to the occasion. Here is one of our games.
Damian Śliwicki-Tashkinova 0-1
Damian lost to some cinema star, which we simply cannot understand, because cinema isn’t really that big a thing these days. As for the game itself. Whenever you play badly, you lose. And Damian, playing with the white pieces, had a wonderful opportunity to shine. He didn’t take it. He played 31. g:h3, when the simple a4 would have won. We show this in our variation.
Alicja Śliwicka-Martirosyan 0-1
The final position is a disaster. Let’s rewind. After 35 moves, White is down three pawns; by move 30, they had no game left. There’s simply no good continuation to be seen. Incredible. Yet there were counter-chances. And a creative chess player, even when there are no counter-chances, can create them. Alicja lacked creativity. In our game, our sparring partner, the CEEC computer, having two extra pawns, went for a rook exchange and lost. And in this position, Black also lost after 37…c5. And we’re showing this variation too.
Piorun’s slip-ups
As misfortunes come in pairs, Kacper lost two games. Against Aron Pasti and Kalogeris. Over a hundred points’ lead in the rankings over both opponents and, unfortunately, defeats. We’re already looking into why. The game against Kalogeris. We won’t comment on the opening moves; Piorun played his game, and here is the position after White’s 29th move. Move 29.Re4 was already weak as it voluntarily sacrifices a piece. Better for White would have been 29.Re2. But okay, here’s the position. What does it tell us? It’s simple. White’s queen is playing without any support from her pieces. In a professional game, there are no instances where an unsupported queen achieves anything. And in this position, Piorun plays 29…g3. A disaster.
Black has an army directed at the white king, and yet he makes this move. There were a number of better moves; we found and played four of them, and in every case Black wins by checkmate. Take a look at one of them.
The second game against Pasti. Here, Pasti displayed precise and brilliant chess, so we won’t spoil the effect. We’ve included the original game. An incredible endgame. Pasti clearly outclasses Piorun here. Every move he makes is better than Piorun’s.
Modzelewski-Tescan 0-1
In our view, to win this game, it was necessary to sacrifice a rook in order to develop strong pawns in the centre. And that is what we did. We then played three different variations from move 37, and won in each of them. We present all three.
Sargsyan-Kacharova 1-0
We have also highlighted a young chess player from Georgia, Nikolozi Kacharova, aged 22, rated 2500, who, with six wins, suffered a single defeat playing Black against Sargsyan. For had he won that game, he would have taken first place and claimed the title of European Champion. White plays sensibly and precisely. 26.d4. After 26.Q:a5, Black wins, and we show that winning line. To win after 26.d4, one must look for another way to victory. And we found it too. Had Kacharov found it, he would have been the 2026 European Champion.
7. Grzegorz Nasuta was eliminated from the championship; although he did not lose a single game, he had too many draws, resulting in a lower points tally and failing to make the top ranks. And surely he could have won at least some of those drawn games and improved his result.
But it could have gone differently. As proof, we’ll look at a drawn game against Hayk Yeritsyan, who was one of Goldchess’s top players a fair few years ago and now has a rating of 2342. And in this game, it was Hayk who could have won. We’re showing this variation because it’s extraordinary.
All the games are here:
https://www.goldchess.com/en/other/winnerslist.html#g0_wins