Konstantin Kavutsky has just finished his European adventure. After getting the silver at the Grand Hotel Adriatico, IM Kavutsky visited the Chess Olympiad in Budapest. Now he is back to regular schedule, firmly on the road to GM and concentrated on building the ultimate chess dashboard at ChessDojo
Here is what Kostya had to share about his experience in Italy and the progress of the ChessDojo platform. Do not forget to follow Kostya on Twitter/X
Hello Kostya, finished shared first at Grand Hotel Adriatico Chess Festival main event
Yes! Sadly I received second on tiebreaks, as I could have won the tournament in the final round had I converted my position.
What was the key game for you there?
I was most proud of my Round 4 win against FM Kalosha (replay the game here) He had been playing well all event, and I felt that this would be one of the toughest pairings. I managed to win a fairly nice King’s Indian though! Afterwards my tournament felt more or less in control.
You also got the gold in the blitz
That was fun! After drawing my main rival in the sixth round of blitz, I ended up losing a critical game (ironically, to my opponent from the classical round earlier that day) and I thought it was over. But then my main rival also lost a game, which allowed me to tie for first (but this time, win on tiebreaks!). It was quite nice to play blitz on the wooden boards :)
Why did you decide to go to Italy
The tournament looked interesting and fit well with my schedule. The organizer Andrea Rebeggianni invited me to play
One of your main activities is ChessDojo. How is ChessDojo doing?
Dojo is doing great! Our training site (https://chessdojo.club) has made tremendous improvements lately. Members can now track their ratings, store their games, follow a training plan, join clubs, and take tactical tests all in one app. And more features are coming soon! We are working hard to build the ultimate chess dashboard.
And how is your own personal GM journey these days?
I am still on the way! Of course my rating has tanked post-pandemic, but I am still motivated and dreaming about the GM title. Recently I started blogging about my training and tournaments, which folks can read about on hellokostya.substack.com. The blog has quenched my thirst for creative expression and will hopefully keep me focused on my goal of GM. My main challenge is that I have many projects to work on outside of my own chess, so over the next several months I will need to dedicate ample time for training, and I hope to use the Dojo site to track my activity. Nevertheless I am optimistic, as there is always plenty to do :)
