Daniel Dardha wins Sardinia Open

Clutch wins

The Sardinia World Chess Festival took place at the Club Hotel Marina Beach in Orosei, located along the east coast of the Italian island. Three open tournaments took place simultaneously, with the main event a 9-round Swiss open featuring 168 participants, including 11 players with a 2600+ Elo rating.

After 8 rounds, Alan Pichot (5^th seed, Spain) and Yair Parkhov (20^th seed, Israel) were tied for first place with 6½ points each. Parkhov had started the event with five consecutive wins, including a victory over rating favourite Vladimir Fedoseev, while Pichot came from beating 16^th seed Vitaly Sivuk from Sweden to climb to the shared lead.

A 10-player chasing pack stood a half point behind, with 8 players from the top-10 belonging to this group. Pichot and Parkhov had already faced each other in round 6 and had signed a 42-move draw. In the final round, Pichot had the white pieces against Daniel Dardha, while Parkhov had the black pieces against Jorden van Foreest. Players belonging to the chasing pack were paired up against each other on boards 3 to 6.

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, both Pichot and Parkhov lost their games on Saturday, allowing Dardha and Van Foreest to leapfrog them in the standings. Kirill Shevchenko (3^rd seed, Romania) and Volodar Murzin (7^th seed, FIDE) also grabbed wins in the final round, which meant four players ended the event tied for first place with 7 points each.

According to tiebreak criteria, Dardha was declared the tournament winner, with Shevchenko and Murzin completing the podium.

Earlier this year, Dardha won the Djerba Masters in Tunisia. At that event, an 8-player single round-robin, he had also tied for first — with Hans Niemann — and obtained the title thanks to his superior tiebreak score.

The playing hall in Sardinia | Photo: Davide Locatelli

Final standings

…168 participants

All available games

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