In celebration of its 150th anniversary, the Royal Dutch Chess Federation presents the Open World Dutch Women TOP 10 Championship at Van der Valk Hotel, Eindhoven. The Championship is organized in parallel to the World Youth (Under-16) Olympiad. The nine-round women’s round-robin tournament features competitors hailing from nine countries: Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain. Titled players such as International Masters (IMs), and Women International Masters (WIMs) are competing which allows norm opportunities for the participants. According to the official website, “For an IM norm, 6.5 points are required, for a WGM norm 6 points are required.”
Live games can be followed on chess.com via the following link: https://www.chess.com/events/20232023-open-world-dutch-women-top-10-championship.
Day 3 -IM Marsel Efroimski vs WIM Trisha: 1-0
With the Black Pieces, Trisha was facing yet another International Master – Marsel Efroimski from Israel. She is the top seed of the tournament so it was a 1st and 2nd seed clash!
The game opened with the quiet Rossolimo. Both players seemed to be in prep as they were blitzing out their moves until Trisha’s questionable decision in giving up the c5-pawn (diagram).
Typically, in these structures giving up the c5-pawn is not a big deal since c5-pawn is a double pawn and helps black active the light-squared, as seen in the game. However in this position, concretely Trisha doesn’t have targets in the white’s position that can generate enough counterplay.
By the time it looked like Trisha was generating counterplay on the queenside it was already too late. White found a beautiful checkmating attack.
Soon after Marsel successfully trapped and checkmated Trisha’s king.
You can follow through the full game here:
Day 2 -WIM Trisha vs IM Marta, Garcia Martin: 0-1
After a fruitful start, Trisha was up against Spanish IM Marta in Round 2. Trisha was a favorite in terms of Elo rating. Marta played a rare but well-known English Defence. In the opening, Trisha got space and control in the center. In return black has targets such as the d5-pawn (Diagram).
Trisha was not able to find a way to firmly control her center. Marta found active ideas which resulted in a better endgame.
From an inferior endgame soon Marta was able to pick up Trisha’s Kingside pawns which made it evident that the point was in her pocket, until….
After Bxb5 Blunder, Trisha got an extra piece and serious chances to draw the game. Everything boiled down to an important decision(diagram).
While Trisha choose the latter, it was absolutely important to capture the outside passer (pawn on b6) to lead to a technically drawn endgame. After a series of moves, the drawback of not taking the b6-pawn was evident. Trisha’s bishop got overloaded:
Follow through Trisha’s game below:
Day 1 – WGM Petra Papp vs WIM Trisha: 0-1
In round 1, Trisha faced Grandmaster (WGM) Petra Papp from Hungary. She is a very experienced player and represented Hungary in many International level tournaments.
The game opened with a Catalan opening. Petra doesn’t usually player 1.d4 but she might have wanted to surprise Trisha early on in the game. Trisha captured White’s c4-pawn, in return white got Center Control and active pieces (Diagram).
Although it looked like White had everything ready for an explosion, for instance, connected rooks; rooks on the central files; pieces eyeing Trisha’s king (Qd2, Bf4, Nf3). The bishop sacrifice on h6 was not the right moment to strike. This mistake cost Petra a snowball effect where move by move Trisha was increasing her advantage.
White’s main strength became its downfall. White’s centralized pieces became a target. Trisha was able to gobble white’s material with Nd3. The lead-in material allowed Trisha to cool down White’s attack and eventually deliver a checkmating attack on White’s king in the end.
Follow through Trisha’s game below: