Michele Godena
{{short description|Italian chess grandmaster (born 1967)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox chess biography
| name = Michele Godena
| image = Michele Godena - Civitanova Marche 2015.jpg
| caption = Godena in 2015
| full_name =
| country = Italy
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1967|6|30}}
| birth_place = Valdobbiadene, Italy
| title = Grandmaster (1996)
| rating =
| peakrating = 2561 (March 2010)
| FideID = 800090
}}
Michele Godena (born 30 June 1967) is an Italian chess player. He achieved the FIDE titles of International Master (IM) in 1988 and Grandmaster (GM) in 1996, following a plus score on board one for Italy at the Chess Olympiad in Yerevan. Godena is a five-time Italian champion.
Career
Godena has won five times the Italian Chess Championship, in 1992, 1993, 1995, 2005 and 2006. He was runner-up in 1990 and 1998. His 2006 victory was closely contested with the then 14-year-old Italian-American prodigy, International Master Fabiano Caruana. Both players finished the contest on 8 points from 11 rounds and Godena triumphed narrowly in the rapid and blitz play-off.
He tied for 1st–4th with Andrei Sokolov, Dražen Sermek and Xie Jun at Cannes 1997.{{cite web |url=https://theweekinchess.com/html/twic125.html#Cannes |last=Crowther |first=Mark |title=TWIC 125: Cannes Chess Festival |date=1997-03-31 |website=The Week in Chess |accessdate=2019-12-21}} At the Aeroflot Open 2006 in Moscow, Godena tied for 1st–12th in the A2 group, finishing 12th on tiebreak with a rating performance of 2628.{{cite web |title=Aeroflot Open 2006 Tournament A2 - Final Ranking |url=http://www.aeroflotchess.com/results/rank09a2.htm |website=aeroflotchess.com |accessdate=17 January 2016 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060219032921/http://www.aeroflotchess.com/results/rank09a2.htm |archivedate=2006-02-19}}
In June 2007, in Arvier, Godena became the champion of the European Union having tied for 1st–2nd with Serbian Nikola Sedlak, who won the tournament on tie-break, but as a non-European Union citizen, could not be awarded the title. In 2016, Godena won the 4th Francophonie Championship in Menton, France edging out Bassem Amin, Pablo Almagro Llamas and Yannick Gozzoli on tiebreak score.{{Cite web |url=http://theweekinchess.com/html/twic1147.html#16 |last=Crowther |first=Mark |title=TWIC 1147: 4th ch-Francophonie 2016 |website=The Week in Chess |date=2016-10-31 |access-date=2017-09-25}} He has played many times for his country's Olympiad team and at Elista in 1998 posted a score of 66.7% playing board two.
For many years Italy's strongest player, he recorded his highest ever Elo rating of 2561 in March 2010.
Playing style
While Godena was once nicknamed "The Italian Machine" by Sergei Shipov, other commentators believe that his disproportionate time management might be holding back his further progress. He frequently uses all of his time in the opening and early middle game, relying on positional knowledge, quickfire technique and instinctive reactions to make the remaining moves in incrementally added time.
As white, he opens with 1.e4 and as black, prefers the Ruy Lopez and Slav/Semi-Slav variations of the Queen's Gambit Declined.
Personal life
Born in Valdobbiadene, Godena lives in Finale Ligure.
Publications
- {{cite book |last=Godena |first=Michele |title=La mia siciliana |date=2007 |publisher=Caissa Italia |language=it |isbn=9788888756561}}
- {{cite book |last1=Codenotti |first1=Bruno |last2=Godena |first2=Michele |title=A scuola di scacchi da Alice – Intrecci tra scacchi, matematica e letteratura |date=2019 |publisher=Hoepli |language=it |isbn=9788820391577}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{365Chess.com player|Michele_Godena}}
- {{Chessgames player|17040}}
- {{OlimpBase player|t97n9ndf}}
- {{FIDE}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Godena, Michele}}
Category:Italian chess players
Category:Italian chess writers
Category:Chess Olympiad competitors