Giuoco Presto?

A total of 20 players took part in round 3 of Tuesday Night Action 33. The feature game tonight is a Giuoco Pianissimo, which in English Terms is the Italian Game with d3 instead of d4 (known as the Giuoco Piano), also known as the Slow Italian, played between Patrick McCartney(2063) and Dominique Myers(2115). The term Pianissimo is also an Italian term used to refer to music that is quiet, slow, and soft. Presto, on the other hand, is music executed at a rapid tempo. Well, as it turns out, White's attack in this game was anything but slow. Black proceeds to play a couple of inferior moves and follows that up with a blunder, leading to a position that is completely winning for White by move 16! Black decides to play on in a lost position, but all it did was prolong the game by a mere 14 moves when he gets mated in a 30 move drubbing. This game raises the question, should the opening be renamed to the "Giuoco Presto"?

The game can be viewed below.



This puts McCartney in a 4-way tie for the lead with 2 points as the leader going into round 3, Mark Biernacki(2102) played the Black side of a Saemisch King's Indian against Daniel Cremisi(2289). The game reached the ending, but White's position was too strong and the win by Cremisi puts both in a tie for the lead with McCartney and David Blackwelder(1695), who took down Ali Shirzad(1679).

Elsewhere in the top section, Luke Harris(1768) faced off against Gil Holmes(1806) in an Accelerated Dragon, Maroczy Bind, and the theory was too much for White as by move 11, Black was up a piece and a pawn for no compensation in what ultimately became no contest and lead to a rout by Black while Vishnu Vanapalli(1894) was unable to take down Michael Uwakwe's(2053) passive defense and it eventually lead to defeat.

In the lower section, what was a 2-way tie for the lead with 2 points has now become a 5-way tie as Phillip Miller(1555) was taken down by David Richards(1607), leading to both players being tied at 2 while the other leader coming in, Rathvik Prakki(1155), remained idle this week. This allowed Debs Pedigo(1309) and Devon Jackson(UNR) to join them after defeating Corey Frazier(1405) and David Keeling(596), respectively. Other winners include Julian Parker(1457) and Hassan Hashemloo(1379).

All of the results can be viewed here.