Published 8/16/2025
Hi everyone! Today we will be discussing a game that happened in recent Icelandic Open between Icelandic Grandmaster Stefansson and Fide Master Birkisson. The game started off in a calm manner but towards the middlegame the nature of the position became a lot more sharp. In the heat of the battle, the players agreed to a draw with there seemingly being more to play for even in the final position.
Let’s take a look!
It would have been interesting to see if the player with white would have spotted the b4 idea. The main reason why a move like that can be hard to spot from afar when calculating lines is because it’s a very quiet/slow move in a position that is very sharp and has a material imbalance with a wide open black king.
I hope you enjoyed this example with the nice 26.b4 idea, and hopefully you can apply some similar concepts in your games if you have a chance 🙂 Thanks for reading and have a great day!