Not a good day for our team. We lost 3.5-0.5 against Argentina, but the worst thing was that we didn’t really stand a chance. We had two opening disasters on boards 1 and 3 and I don’t want to bring my team-mates down even further, so I’ll only speak only my game.

I was white against GM Felgaer and the opening was the Exchange Slav. He repeated a game of his from 2010, but I prepared an improvement.

14 Na4! (instead of 14 Ne2)

I had slight pressure throughout the game, but he defended well, never allowing my advantage to grow. I got a chance to implement a curious positional idea of doubling my a-pawns.

18 Qa3!?

The finale of the game was interesting as I tried to play on domination and trap his knight on a2.

The knight is trapped, but impossible to take

He found the best plan of Rd8-d6-b6 while I brought my king to d2. It was only enough for a move repetition

37…Na2 38 Kb2 Nb4 39 Kc3 draw.

All in all a well-played game by both sides. And as they say, tomorrow’s another day.