Zoran wint de Coppa

door Zoran Ristanovic, 22 juni 2026


Op 19 juni speelden Samuel en Zoran de finale van de Coppa de Torre. Hieronder deelt de winnaar - in het Engels - zijn indrukken van de weg naar de finale en van de beslissende partij zelf.



The road to the final of Zoran and Samuel.



This season I have hardly played any classical chess. For this reason, before the final I was already very happy with the accomplished wins against the higher-rated opponents. Needless to say, it took crossing a few storms to get there. The classical games against Philip and Mark were drawn, and I have won only after hard-fought blitz games. In the game against Harmen, I had to survive a worse position and have won late into the endgame.

Finally, there was one more exciting game to be played – the final against Samuel. Although I am an e4 player, in the past couple of years I have only faced twice (!) the Ruy Lopez in the classical game. This opening was never the main thing to prepare for the opponents. Nevertheless, if there was a reward for analysing games in the d3 Spanish, I could have not imagined a better one than winning de Coppa! I would like to commend Samuel for making it to the finals and playing an interesting game.

Below are two exercising positions from the game. The answers are in the commented game below. Many thanks to Paul for writing down all moves (with many knight jumps!) in the zeitnot.

Position 1 (strategic). Black to play. White has just played 14. Be3. Should black play 14...c6 or 14...c5, and after 14...c5 (as in the game), should white take en passant 15. dxc6, weakening the black’s pawn structure (as in the game)?



Position 2 (calculation). White to play. In the game, I played 24. Ng1, but there is a stronger way to continue, which I decided not to pursue. Can you figure out the best continuations for white and black?



The full game: