Imagine

"Giuseppe Borgatti" Theatre in Cento

Imagine you are in Italy, about to begin your journey into the first round of the very first Cento Open near Bologna. You check the pairings and see you are playing up as expected against a strong IM player ..... oops, make that a recently titled GM. Looking closer, you see that you've drawn the white pieces. Hmmm. Which way to steer the game? Maybe something classic .... a Ruy Lopez maybe.

And just then your dream is interrupted by your study partner who points out that your opponent just happens to have written the recent book Attacking the Spanish: Marshall, Schliemann and Gajewski! You're playing Sabino Brunello? Well, maybe not a Ruy Lopez. What about a King's Gambit? And you can get kinda tricky with the move order. Well, not so much for Giuseppe Valenti, who actually lived something like this dream today.