From June 27th until July 2nd, at La Casa del Ajedrez (Madrid), a match between GMs Julio Granda, current Americas Continental champion, and David Antón, current 4th best U-18 player, took place.
After his fifth round victory, Anton got a two-points advantage, which secured him overall victory with one game to go.
As all the previous games, the fifth one was very hard-fought and gave chances for both players. David obtained an early advantage, which was nicely converted in an extra pawn. However, Granda’s great defensive skills rose to the surface. He not only balanced the scale, but even went for the full point. Sadly for the Peruvian, he blundered by leaving his king too open and ended up losing the game.
The final game was brilliant. David Anton went for a very interesting positional bishop sacrifice, thus creating the most complex struggle of the match. With chances for both sides, a lot of calculation and a lot of mistakes, the game finally finished in Granda’s favor. The final score was 3.5 – 2.5.
The match was organized by the Chess Federations from Madrid and Spain, with the help of La Casa del Ajedrez, and the companies ECORO and Ajedrez con Cabeza.
