During Easter, I participated in the international tournament Malakoff International Chess Open, which was held in the Malakoff district of Paris. This was a classical chess tournament with nine rounds and over 300 participants. I travelled with two friends from the national team, Hanna and Marte Kyrkjebø. I had been looking forward to this tournament for a long time since it had been a while since I played such a large nine-round classical chess tournament. With only one round each day, I was looking forward to spending ample time on preparation and opening work before the games.
The tournament started a bit slowly with three draws against lower-rated players, before I won a nice game in round four. In this game, I found a fine combination that exploited the weakened white squares around the black king. My opponent resigned after two moves:
Position from round 4. White to move and win. Can you see the solution? Solution: 1.Rxf5 Qxf5 2.Bg4, and black cannot defend against the threat of Be6 followed by Qe7, where white wins the black rook on f8.
After the victory in round four, my play improved, and I finished by scoring 5 points in the last 6 rounds. Several of these games were long, hard-fought wins, especially the game in the final round. After about five hours of play, I chose to go for a risky sacrifice in front of my opponent’s king. The sacrifice was not correct, but with little time on the clock, it became too difficult for my opponent to defend, and he ran out of time.
Image from the final round of the tournament taken a minute before my opponent ran out of time. Photo: Malakoff International Chess Open
With this victory, I became the best female player in the tournament and finished in 16th place among 309 participants with 6.5/9 points. I am pleased to have gone undefeated through the tournament, but there were also a few too many draws against lower-rated players. Going forward, I will expand my opening repertoire with black to find openings where I can create more opportunities against lower-rated players.
From the prize ceremony where I received the award as the best female player in the tournament. Photo: Malakoff International Chess Open
Besides the chess tournament itself, there was also time for sightseeing, French cuisine, and not least a visit to the Freestyle Grand Slam, which was held in Paris at the same time. This was a tournament with Magnus Carlsen and other top players. In this tournament, the pieces are set up in a random order from the start. When we visited the tournament, we were lucky enough to be asked to do the draw for the position to be played on the final day!
From the beautiful venue where the Freestyle Grand Slam was held. Photo: private
Monika Machlik, 29.4.25