Today´s round was very interesting but not successful for both countries (Sweden and Bosnia and Herzegovina).
While Bosnians played against Serbia in Balkan derby, Sweden had much easier task against United Arab Emirates.
The big Balkan derby was played in not the best moment for Bosnia and Herzegovina because few of our best players are not in the team.
We were lower rated on every board but held to 2-2.
Sweden was favourite against United Arab Emirates. UAE´s team has one Grandmaster and one International Master (on low 2300 Elo points) and the rest of the team are 22xx players.
Nothing helped, because it was one of these days when everything goes wrong...UAE won with 2,5-1,5.
I did not followed today´s round in the Olympiad (due to long training session) so I don´t know if I can do objective analyses of today´s games.
What can I see from 2-3 minute pushing on right arrow and going trough games, it was very very fighting day for both teams, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sweden.
Sweden was unlucky against Croatia, while Bosnia and Herzegovina held against better rated Slovakia and played 2-2.
It was very interesting for me to see match between Scotland and Denmark, which finished also with 2-2.
Already in this round we could see some really interesting matches.
Interesting day for Sweden and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Istanbul.
As I expected, Sweden played very good against Serbia, and at the end drew 2-2 .
On the contrary of my prediction, Bosnia and Herzegovina played very good and won against higher rated Vietnam with 2,5-1,5.
I think that this results are good for both countries.
It will be very interesting tomorrow when Bosnian and Herzegovina is going to play on board number one, against Slovakia.
For Sweden it is very interesting match against one more country from Balkan, Croatia. In a way Croatian team is similar like Serbian team.
They have similar ratings, similar style and similar mentality.
Probably every chess related person in the World knows that Chess Olympiad in Istanbul started yesterday.
I see no point to write general informations about the Olympiad as you can find all aspects of it covered on the most popular chess sites on the internet.
I shall focus on results and and games of Swedish and Bosnian teams , not because both are coloured in yellow and blue but because the majority of readers comes from these two countries and of course because I am Bosnian (more precisely Herzegovinian, but this is regional not ethical term) who lives in Sweden and have many friends in both teams.
It can be also interesting with Danish team and I will comment on them too, and probably not just Bosnia and Herzegovina but also other ex. Yugoslavian countries.
The following interview is done with International Master Daniel Semcesen from Sweden, on his peak he was rated slightly under 2500.
Daniel speaks about forthcoming Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Swedish chances, Swedish chess, chess tournaments, training, his future and much more...
We agreed to do this interview during Manhem´s GM tournament and I think that this is appropriate time to publish this interview like an introduction for Chess Olympiad.
All right, after we took decision to change things in our training and after we understood that we have to train all aspects of chess it is time to say something about real training.
I planed this serial of articles like something that will help you understand what actually needs to be trained in chess in order to improve but mostly from theoretical point of view.
All kinds of practical examples you could already found on this blog, and it will be published in the future, but not in this structural way as these theoretical articles (only if I fail to explain something strictly in theoretical way).
This text is going to be written to everyone who wants to improve their level of play in chess. I will share some of my personal experiences, but of course it is not possible to apply everything on everyone.
In the cases when something is written just to title players I shall point out that.
I have to write at the very beginning that this is not some revolutionary formula for your success, or something that you can not find on other chess sites, books or magazines.
It is just couple of advises which helped me improve my chess.
As I am in a kind of training period right now, I shall continue to write articles like this which will be like a compensation for lack of my games from the tournaments.
I decided to share with you some of my analysed games.
The first one is a game against Czech amateur player in the second round of last year edition of Prague Open.
We played The Kings Indian defence and he tried with a solid line but soon I overtook an initiative.
This game was published in monthly newsletter (or some theoretical article) on chess vibes. I do not remember who was annotator but he liked my idea of playing 13...c5.
The second game was not so straightforward like this. It looked almost the same, as I took an initiative early in the opening, but if you are not on your highest level, it is extraordinary hard to win a chess game against Sicilian Scheveningen.
What makes this game interesting is variations in the analysis which points out some moments when I could win the game.
The game was eventually decided in the time trouble when my opponent missed mate in one.
What am I going to publish now are some mistakes from tournament in Gothenburg.
It is not going to be just from my games, but from a games which I were interested in.
I am sure that it were many more mistakes in this tournament, but I want to publish these were probably both players missed to find right moves, let´s say mutual mistakes.
After two examples of this kind of mistakes, I will publish one example of missed move in combination which actually works but both players thought that the combination is not possible.
In a way, that was also mutual mistake.
Let´s see what happened.
SS Manhem´s chess week is over and what I feel right now is that I am totally exhausted.
First of all I want to say that I am very happy for invitation in this tournament and that organisers did tremendous job to provide players best possible conditions.
The big thanks to the SS Manhem.
The second thing is that I really need to say that all the players in the group showed big fighting spirit but simultaneously, atmosphere were very friendly and everyone were analysing games without slightness problem.
All in all, everything were perfect.
Just like last year, SS Manhem from Gothenburg organizes Grandmaster tournament as part of their chess week.
It will be played a few more tournaments for lower rated players.
The tournament will be played in Gothenburg´s Chess Centre and one of the participators in this event will be the writer of this lines.
It will be played in form of 9 rounds round robin tournament with 4 Grandmasters, 4 International Masters , one FIDE Master and one player without title.
Average Elo rating of participators will be 2475 and average rating of my opponents will be 2485 Elo.
This is position from Grandelius N. (E2562) - Grover S. (E2516).
Grandelius could play:
1. h5!, gxh5 ( 1...Nxh5 2. Rxh5+, gxh5 3. Nxe5 +- )
2. Nxb5! It is very important with move order !
2...axb5
3. Rxh5+, Nxh5 ( 3...Kg8 4. Bh7+, Kh8 5. Rh6+-)
4. Nxe5, Ng7 ....and now comes very nice queen sacrifice
5. Qh5+, Nxh5
6. Nf7++, Kg8
7. Nh6 #
When I said that move order is very important I thought that White could also play:
1. h5!, gxh5
2. Rxh5+ ?!, Nxh5
3. Nxb5 ? With the same idea as in the right solution, but here Black has fantastic defence......
3...Rc1!! which destroys white´s coordination. Position is unclear.
In this combination was not possible to answer the question as both moves leads to advantage for White, but better move is 1...Kf8.
The position is from game Bejtovic J. (E2385) - Aagaard J. (E2506)
1...Kf8 (1...Kh8 2. Ra4! That is the point. Who would say on diagram position that this rook on a7 would take part in direct attack on black king in just one move? White´s threats are irresistible.)
Here I missed that following continuation wins a pawn.
2. Rxd6! ( I played 2.Be4 and soon we agreed for a draw)
2...Rxd6
3 .Rxc7, Bd7
4. Be4! This is what I missed. I calculated only 4.Ba3 but after 4...g6 things were rather unclear for me. Black rook has not good squares and he will be forced to exchange it for my bishop. White would stay with a healthy pawn up.
This combination is hard to solve. Black needs to win a pawn on c4 or a5 In order to convert his advantage. To do so, he needs time to put a pressure on a5. If he plays immediate 1...Qc5 2. Nb5 and now tries to exchange on b5 with 2...Bd7 white can play 3.Ra1 and things are not clear.
That´s why Black has to play:
1...Bd7
2. Ra1 (2. Ra2, Qc5 3. Nb5, Bxb5 4. cxb5 and now 4...Qd4 with threat Rc1+ and we can see the difference from variation in introduction. The rook is on a2! )
2...Bb5!! This is the point. Beautiful move.
3. Rd1, Qxc4! and with this temporary queen sacrifice Black wins.
This combination was from the game Swan I. (E2259) - Bejtovic J. (E2385) Glasgow 2012. I missed second move and played 2...Qc5 and went to win the game later on.
Now , it is time for three easier combinations:
In the game Debashis D. (E2446) - Yilmas M. (E2543) White did not miss to play:
1. Qh5+! in order to take away the square h5 from black king.
1...gxh5
2.g5+, Bxg5
3. hxg5 #
It is very important to have many similar mate patterns in own arsenal.
Maybe is not hard to find it during the game, but it is much harder to spot it in one´s calculation 10 moves before it actually appears on the board.
This is from the game Johansson A. (E2029) - Petersen P (E2155) .
White missed to win the game with a queen sacrifice. What was more tragic, he actually lost the game.
1. Rxf4! as indicated in comments on yesterday´s post.
1...Rxe3
2. Rxe3+, Kd8
3. Bb6+ ...and actually game does not finishes with a mate as indicated in the comment, but White has enormous material advantage.
3...Rc7
4. Rf8 and White wins....
According to some definitions of combination in chess this would not be an combination ( Someone said that combination is forced variation with a sacrifice. There is not real sacrifice here.) but as I can see this can be considered combination.
It is from the game Zude E. (E2384) - Popovic D. (E2579).
Black played:
1...Rc3 and White resigned. It can follow
2. Bxc3, dxc3+
3. Kh1 (3. Kf1, Nh2+ 4. Ke1, Qg1+ 5. Nf1, Qxf1#)
3... Nf2+
4. Rxf2, Qxf2 and there is the same material relation as before Black went for the combination. The difference is that White can not stop c pawn from being promoted.
In between two tournaments when you have no time for serious work on your chess, solving easy combinations can be useful practice.
I will share with you some combinations from tournaments when I recently played (Glasgow, Helsingör) and from Junior World Championship in Athena.
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| 1. White to move |
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| 2. Black to move |
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| 3. Black to move |
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| 4. White to move |
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| 5. White to move |
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| 6. Black to move |
Questions:
1. This is position from yesterdays game from Athena Grandelius N. (E2562) - Grover S. (E2516).
Nils played 1. Ne2 ? and went on to win a game later.
How he could win a game with a help of nice queen sacrifice?
2. Position is from the game Bejtovic J. (E2385) - Aagaard J. (E2506) Glasgow 2012.
Is it better to play on h8 or f8 ?
3. This one is really tricky. Swan I. (E2259) - Bejtovic J. (E2385) Glasgow 2012.
How should Black play?
4. This position is from yesterdays game Debashis D. (E2446) - Yilmas M. (E2543) from Athena.
White finished in nice style. How?
5. This position is from a game Johansson A. (E2029) - Petersen P (E2155) from Helsingör.
How White could win the game?
6. Zude E. (E2384) - Popovic D. (E2579) from Politiken Cup in Helsingör.
What played Black here?
Answers will be published tomorrow.
It is over. Politiken Cup is finally over, and what I feel right now is tremendous tiredness.
First of all, it is nice to mention those who won the tournament.
Ivan Cheparinov from Bulgaria had a slightly better middle Bucholz than Ivan Sokolov from Netherlands (actually from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but he changed his federation), and Jonny Hector from Sweden.
While Cheparinov and Hector drew their games in last round, Sokolov like he always do, played very hard to the end.
Things are going to be very interesting in last two rounds of this years edition of Politiken Cup.
In the top there are many draws (but not quick) and anyone who are in the leading group right now can win the competition.
There are eight players with 6,5 points out of 8.
Grandmasters: Cheparinov, Sokolov, Halkias, Markus, Hector and S.B. Hansen but also two International Masters, Vang Glud and Bulski.
It would not be the big surprise if someone who in in the big group of players with 6 points, wins his two games and finishing on the first place.
There are 19 players in that group, but for example Dreev and Timman are capable to do it.
All right, it started to be more serious in this years edition of Politiken Cup in Helsingör, Denmark.
I had two really hard opponents in Grandmasters from Greece and Russia, Halkias and Romanov.
I can not be dissatisfied with my results against them, because I simply did not deserved more than one draw.
In yesterday´s round, round number 5, I had white pieces and as soon as we finished development of pieces I lost all chances to fight for advantage.
Then, I took practical decision and started to play for a draw.
Halkias played technically without any creativity and I managed to equalise completely.
But, that was not all!
