Today, quite surprisingly, we didn’t play on one of the top boards as I expected. In fact, we played on the last board of the teams who had scored victories in the first round. This was very disappointing, as for just one board we could have played on board 1 against the Russians. But little did I know…

The match against the Dominican Republic went well, even though not entirely smoothly. I forgot my analysis and failed to punish his opening mistakes, in another Maroczy Bind like in round 1, and then started to take too many risks. At one moment I even sacrificed my queen!

He should have taken the queen!

But he took on e6 instead and I had an advantage but couldn’t find a way to increase it. I was posing problems until the very end and he succumbed eventually. We won 3-1 and the biggest surprise was when the pairings for tomorrow’s round came out.

To our great surprise, Mother Russia awaits us! We’re all excited and looking forward to tomorrow’s match!