Elitserien, Round 4

Yesterday were played three matches of Swedish highest division, Elitserien.
Eksjö SK was not very successful as we lost against SS Manhem with high result 2-6.
In other matches in Scanias derby Limhamns SK won against LASK, despite huge difference in rating for club from Lund.
Orgryte SK played against Västerås SK and the match ended in a draw, 4-4.
Two more matches will be played in February in "mini-sammandrag" in Stockholm.
As I already wrote in introduction there was a Scania derby on the schedule.
In Lund played host club LASK against club from Malmö, Limhamns SK.
LASK had four Grandmasters and four International Masters in their team against only two Grandmasters and two International Masters (and four not title players) in Limhamns SK.
Only Nils Grandelius did his job and won against Hector, while the rest of the players were stopped by Limhamns SK which always played with a good team spirit in these derbies (from the time when I played for LASK). While on the upper boards it could go either way (actually on the first three boards LASK won 2-1) on the middle boards Limhamns SK won by 2-1 and took advantage of, in my opinion, slightly overrated for these kind of matches, LASK players.
On the last two boards LASK were still the favorites, but under the pressure Limhamns players played better and won with 2-0.
Altogether 5-3, and my congratulations for club from Malmö.
The details can be found on following link: Elitserien, site of Chess federation of Sweden, or you can read the very good report from LASK point of view on their home page: Lunds akademiska schackklubb, or the report from Limhamns SK point of view: Limhamns SK

                                            

    Eksjö SK                                    2 - 6                 SS Manhem  

Peter Vas - Bejtovic Jasmin                              0-1
Per Vernersson - Victor Nithander                    0-1
Johan Hultin - Nedeljko Malesevic                    1-0
Axel Ornstein - Karl Johan Moberg                draw
Mats Welin - Ali Ghazi Al Saadi                        1-0
Christopher Krantz - Joel Åkesson                  draw
David Fendrich - Håkan Åkvist                         1-0
Per-Olov Nordström - Magnus Carlhammar      0-1

(Eksjö SK players are highlighted)

What to say about a match where we were outplayed by high score and we were hosts.
First of all, it is fair to say that Eksjö SK has some players which does not live in Sweden and these are our players for boards 1-4 (GM Gdanski, GM Cicak and soon to be IM de Verdier).
That means that we can really count on these players only when we are playing first three rounds or last three games which are played during one weekend.
If we have some luck in the pairings, then we can count to meet Stockholms clubs in "mini-sammandrag" and than we can count on our big guns.
Unfortunately our reserves are not good enough for the Elitserien.
It is highly possible that SS Manhem counted on this, as they played with almost strongest team.
This was their last chance to try to fight for their place in Elitserien.
They will play mini-weekend in Malmö/Lund in February which will be very tough for them (against Limhamns SK and LASK) and these two match-points improves their chances of success.
SS Manhem is the club from Gothenburg which organizes a lot of junior tournaments and the second strongest closed tournament in Sweden (Sigeman & co is the strongest).
They have very strong, but still amateur players in their team and they are good balanced team.
What actually happened yesterday ?!
I knew that I have to play for a win as I was better rated than my opponent (who came from England, Oxford to play the match) and especially as I had to try to compensate for our weaknesses lower in the team.
I got nice version of Hedgehog System, and with a thematic pawn sacrifice in the center I got some initiative. There were two mutual blunder which did not change the natural curse of the game.
He reacted to slow and my initiative grown to the point when it was not possible to save the game.
This victory for one more time proved my good presentation in Swedish league and results in the last five years clearly shows that I was one of the best team players in the league.
I know this sounds arrogant and that future games can prove me wrong, but at least the games from the past (five years!) speaks for themselves.
Later on, Axel Ornstein played a draw, and the same happened in the game of Christopher Krantz. Both were white and this was not optimal.
The team captain Håkan Åkvist lost after one unsound sacrifice and the result was even.
Ali Ghazi was just lost against Mats Welin, and on the last board we have some hopes as Nordström could only win his game, but a draw was most expected result.

The fate of the match was decided on the second and third board where Per Vernersson had complicated position against Victro Nithander and it could go either way.
Malesevic was solid on the third board.

A little later, Victor won his game and Mats Welin finished his job, so Manhem already had +2.
Nordström played for the trick by became tricked and lost the game.
It was time to travel back to Scania as I was in a hurry to catch my train in Nessjö.
When I came home I saw that even Malesevic lost his game so we lost with 2-6.
I think it is too big score for that what happened in the match.

However, we have two more matches in  February, which are very hard against Rockaden Stockholm and Västerås, and then in March we have to fight for the place in the Elitserien against Team Viking, Burgsvik Alva and Orgryte.
Against Burgsvik Alva and Orgryte we are favorites (if we are going to play with full team).
With some good focus and still very good game-points score, we should fulfill our task.

In one of the next posts I will show what happened in my game, and some additional details from the match.
Yesterday was played the first round of London Chess Classics, and I will analyse the most interesting moments on the blog.