Sasha Sharma: Level 20 Chess Rival (1619 ELO)

Knight tier · Returner · plays the Italian Game

How Sasha plays

Sasha played a lot as a student in Lyon, then gave twenty years to medicine before picking the game back up during a sabbatical. Unlike many returners she came back with a plan: rebuild from classical foundations. The Giuoco Piano is her chosen classroom, and she plays it the old-fashioned way, ...Bc5, ...Nf6, ...d6, ...a6, castle, then manoeuvre.

Her understanding has come back faster than her calculation. Sasha reads positions well, chooses sensible plans and knows where her pieces belong, but in tactical moments she can miss a resource that would once have been obvious to her. She is comfortable in balanced middlegames where both sides shuffle behind their pawns and uneasy when the position suddenly sharpens. At 1619 her errors come mostly in transitions, when one structure turns into another. She also tends to respect threats that are not real, which can make her defend more than she needs to.

At 1619 ELO, Sasha plays like a real club player at that rating: she sees simple threats but still leaves pieces hanging and misses tactics two or three moves deep. Check every capture she offers, and look for loose pieces after each of her moves. Most games at this level are decided by the first clean tactic, not by the opening.

Italian Game: the line Sasha plays

In the Italian Game Sasha meets 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 with ...Bc5, the classical Giuoco Piano. The book continues with ...Nf6, ...d6, ...a6 and short castling: quiet, symmetrical development where both sides manoeuvre before anything breaks open.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.O-O Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.c3 a6 7.Re1 O-O

Learn it move by move: Italian Game walkthrough

How to beat Sasha

  1. Bring a knight toward her king with the Nh4 and Nf5 manoeuvre. She tends to answer every visible danger, and a knight on f5 can push her into passive moves that cost time elsewhere.
  2. Change the structure when it suits you, for example by playing d4 and exchanging on e5 to open the d-file. Transitions are where she makes most of her errors, so you decide when they happen.
  3. Use your queenside pawns. An early b4 and a later a4 gain space against her bishop on a7 and make ...b5 harder, giving your pieces room while hers stay tucked behind e5.
  4. The slow Giuoco Piano rewards patience. Prepare d4 with c3, reroute the queen's knight via d2 and f1 to g3, and only open the centre once your pieces are ready. Avoid trading your light-squared bishop cheaply on f7: the cheap check rarely wins anything.
  5. Their book answers 1.e4 only (with lines for the Italian, Two Knights, Spanish and Scotch). Open 1.d4 or 1.c4 and she is out of book at once.

What beating Sasha teaches you

Sasha trains you to manage transitions: choosing when to change the pawn structure so your opponent has to adjust at the worst possible moment.

Neighbours on the ladder