Daniel Dardha's Italian Game Beats Ioannidis

Featured is an excellent positional chess game between Daniel Dardha and Evgenios Ioannidis from Round 2 of the 2025 European Chess Championship, played on March 16th. Out of an Italian Game we observe a fight over the d4/d5 squares. After Ioannidis's Nb4, Dardha quickly extracts this invasion queen knight and next looks to sideline it with a b4-b5 push all while being attentive to the weakened d4 square that was created in the process. Ioannidis's awkward queen knight post on a5 would eventually lead to a total collapse of his position. #ItalianGame #DanielDardha Image of Daniel Dardha by Lennart Ootes lennartootes.com I'm a self-taught National Master in chess out of Pennsylvania, USA who was introduced to the game by my father in 1988 at the age of 8. The purpose of this channel is to share my knowledge of chess to help others improve their game. I enjoy continuing to improve my understanding of this great game, albeit slowly. Consider subscribing here on YouTube for frequent content, and/or connecting via any or all the below social medias. Your support is greatly appreciated. Take care, bye. :) ★ LICHESS.ORG https://lichess.org/@/Chess-Network ★ CHESS.COM https://www.chess.com/member/chessnet... (affiliate link) ★ TWITCH   / chessnetwork   ★ TWITTER   / chessnetwork   ★ FACEBOOK   / chessnetwork   ★ PATREON   / chessnetwork   ★ DONATE https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr... PGN 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Be7 5. O-O O-O 6. Nc3 d6 7. a4 Nb4 8. Ne2 c5 9. c3 Nc6 10. Ng3 h6 11. Re1 Kh8 12. Bd2 Nh7 13. h3 a6 14. b4 cxb4 15. cxb4 Ng5 16. Bxg5 Bxg5 17. b5 Na5 18. bxa6 bxa6 19. Bd5 Bb7 20. Rb1 Bxd5 21. exd5 f5 22. Nxg5 Qxg5 23. Rb6 Qd8 24. Qb1 Rc8 25. Qb4 Rc5 26. Rxa6 Qc7 27. d4 exd4 28. Qxd4 Nb3 29. Qb2 Na5 30. Nh5 f4 31. Rxd6 Rc3 32. Rd7 Qxd7 33. Qxc3 Rf5 34. Nxg7 Qxg7 35. Qxa5