Eight Central European teams took part in the third edition of the Mitropa Cup held in Castelvecchio Pascoli, a renowned health resort in Northern Italy. Yugoslavia had by far the strongest team with 4 IMs in the pool. Potential contenders included Italy and Switzerland (2 IMs each).

The opening took place on Sunday, October 8th. The first round was played on October 9th in the afternoon. Italy took the lead beating Luxembourg by the wide margin. The hosts retained the lead after day two defeating Germany 3—1. The 3rd round was played on Wednesday, October 11th, but not at the "Il Ciocco". A meeting of car dealers was already scheduled in the conference center. Players moved out of their hotels to Viareggio, a seaside resort 40 km away from "Il Ciocco", which is placed in the Tuscany hilly inland. Games were played in the afternoon in a beach cafe! Italy, the leaders lost to Switzerland. Yugoslavia beat France 3½—½ to climb up the table.

There were two rounds scheduled on Friday, 13th. The Italian team spent the night between Oct 12th and Friday 13th playing the strategic board game "Risk!". Di Cera went to bed at 3am, only to lose both his games the next day. The rest of the team stayed up until 6am. Still, Italy took two 2½—1½ wins on penultimate day to retain 2½ point advantage with last round to go. The Italians had a free day and West Germany had to play Yugoslavia.

There was another far reaching incident in the Italian team. The team captain was convinced that match points were the main criterion, followed by game points. In this case, Italy would have won the overall competition whatever the results of the final day would be. All this had an influence in the Weill—Taruffi game, where the Italian 3rd board accepted a draw in a presumably favourable position.

In a meeting with Marić on Saturday morning, October 14th, Tatai got to know that the score was actually based on game points and not on match points. The Italian team had a bye in the final round, so they couldn't help but observe Yugoslavia beating Germany 3—1 in the afternoon and overtaking them for the the final victory.

/ Based on notes by IM Tatai from l'Italia Scacchistica, Dec 1978 /