Failure in Copenhagen

This position is a moment when everything started to work against me in Copenhagen Chess Challenge 2013.
The final result does not sound so bad, as I made +2 with 5,5 out of 9, but the level of my opponents was such that I needed to score 7 points.
I have to add that everything bad happened in the first half of the tournament, when I lost one game which combined with one victory and three draws gave me only 50% after the first five rounds.
In the second half I started to play better, but only with Black pieces. I won two games, and played two draws with white.
Here is an explanation what actually happened.

Endgame tablebase and chess curiosities

Interesting thing happened today when I solved some studies with one chess player from Lund.
We tried to solve pretty complicated study that you can see on the diagram, and although we seen abundance of ideas in very limited time, we failed to solve it correct.
Well, nothing special about that, til the moment when we looked at the solution.
Right in the beginning something was fishy there.
As in the final position (which you can find if you decide to read this article) there were only six pieces on the board, we could consult very useful tool.
An endgame tablebase!

Copenhagen Chess Challenge 2013

The day after tomorrow starts Copenhagen Chess Challenge 2013, an interesting small tournament in Ballerup at the edge of Copenhagen.
I already played there three times, with oscillating results.
My first tournament in CCC was in 2008 when I made not so good result, but year after that 2009 was even worse.
Only in 2010 I played decent chess there and shared fourth place, finishing the tournament undefeated.

New look , news and google translate

It is already more then a year when I established this blog. In the beginning it was some problems, but with time everything developed quite well.
I think that a level of my English developed and especially design.
I can see with google analytics that the number of visitors improved dramatically and that makes me happy.
After almost one year of the same header on the blog I decided to refresh it a little, and to put some new things.
At the right side of the blog you can find columns with chess news from various sources on the Internet.
The novelty is also google translator for those who does not understand English.

You can see a dropbox at the picture where you can choose between sixty different languages.


Na desnoj strani bloga, kako je označeno na slici, možete naći padajući izbornik sa izborom više od 60 jezika. Na taj način i čitaoci (a njih je nemali broj) koji ne razumiju engleski jezik mogu pratiti tekstove na blogu.
Malo upozorenje: Tekstovi su prevedeni "automatski" sa google translate alatom, što znači da prevodi nisu savršeni (takozvani "indijanski" prevod) ali je moguće razumjeti 99% svega napisanog.

My games from Elitserien final, Part 3/3

It is the right time to write the last article about Elitserien.
Today, I will analyse the game from the last round.
After this article, I will publish some photos from The French Riviera, and then show some games from my victory in Sondex Cup.
The next tournament for me is Copenhagen Chess Challenge, and I will write an introduction to the tournament, as always.
It will be quite enough on this blog before the next tournament,  but in May it will be some old/new columns back.
The position on the diagram is the final position, which is in balance, but by pure luck. You can see what happened....

Solutions for March combinations

Here comes the solutions for the combinations, despite that one of the readers solved it all and wrote his solutions in the comments.

1. Bxh6!

This is the trick.

1...Nxh6

This is the only move, and now

2. Qg6+...with a mate on the next move.

This one is very tricky. Black has to calculate very precisely.   I will give only the main line of the combination. 1...gxh6 2. Bxd7, h5! Only this wins. 3. Qf4, Nxc3  ...and Black wins a piece because of the threat of Ne2+

As I wrote in the introduction for the combinations, White can play Qg7+, but there is something much better.

If you are looking for the combination (if somebody tells you that you are looking for the solution) then you can find it by a method of elimination.

In the reality, you need certain amount of tactical vision.

1. Re1!!

Simple as that, after exchange of queens White is piece up in the endgame.

After the sacrifice on h7 White goes even further: 1. Qxf6!!, gxf6 2. Rg1 A mate on h4 is hanging, and if you solved up to this point, then you did the most of the job, but one extra point for those who calculated further. 2...Qxc2+! 3. Kxc2, Ba4+ 4. Kd3 ...and White has an endgame with exchange up.

This is the easiest combination in this group.

It does not mean that you can not come in this position in your thoughts during the game and considered it as winning for Black and chose something else earlier.

However as a exercise it provides a little or none possibilities for White to go wrong.

1. Qh7+, Kxh7

2. Bg6+, Kg8

3. Rd8 #

Nice!

I like the combinations in which the main point comes a little further in them, as they presents the real game situation. 1. Qxf7+, Kh8 2. Qxe7, Nxf1 Everybody can come to this point, and everybody can find a combination if they look for it at this point. The main thing is to find it from the distance and separate it from the forest of other variations. 3. Ra1!!  1-0

Triumph at Sondex Cup 2013

After three days of hard fights I eventually won the IM2 Group of Sondex Cup 2013.
As I explained in previous article, it is the closed group with six players in it, and in my group there were four International Masters one FIDE master, and one player without title.
At the end I won two games, and played three draws which means that I made 3,5 out of 5.
My expected score was 3.0 out of five, and that means that I over performed by 0,5 points (or +5 in Elo).

Sondex Cup 2013

This weekend I will play in Sondex Cup 2013.
It is a tournament in Kolding in Denmark, organised by local chess club Springaren (The Knight).
Kolding is manly known for it´s handball club, but this time chess will be in the centre of an attention.
I will play five rounds, from which, one is tomorrow, and on Saturday and Sunday we have two rounds.
It is a very unusual system, so 114 players will be divided in groups with six players in each group according to rating, and then the players will play round robin in every group.
Interesting enough!

March combinations

It is time to do some work on the combinations.
This regular monthly rubric is back.

In this position it is White on move.
A question is if there is a breakthrough on the king side.
Black is pawn up and for now stands his ground.
I really like this combination because as a part of the solution there is the same tactical motive which I used in one of my games as a junior.
However, the solution is pretty but not so hard.
Try to find it!

In this position, Black is on move. White has tremendous pressure against the pawn on g7 and all his minor pieces are extremely active.  The knight on e4 are hanging as well. It seems that Black can only take on h6 and after exchange on d7, and White takes on e4, he will be clearly worse (if not lost).  However there is a one small detail that decides the fight in Black´s favour.  Try to find it! I failed when I try to solve this combination.

This is one more position in which I failed to find the right solution.

You see, there are substantial number of these.

White can play: 

1. Qg7+, Qxg7 2. Rxg7, Rxd4 3. Rff7

...and White is better.

Anyway, White has something much better.

Your task is to find it.

White just sacrificed the bishop on h7, and he has to show something for it. If he checks on h5 Black will just cover everything with a rook on h6. There is other solution which is in the principle of revolution/evolution according to Jacob Aagaard. So after one more revolutionary move, White is doing evolution (He/She builds up his position) in order to do the next revolutionary step. Enough about theory. What is the winning sequence?

This one is rather easy but nice.

Black just moved his queen on f4.

There are a plenty of threats but the most important think is that White is on move.

After some short calculation, we can conclude that White has no good defencive possibilities.

So what can he do in the attack?

If there is no bishop on e8 then it is trivial.

So your task is to eliminate the bishop on e8.

Think that the bishop can do every important task that White queen can do in this position.

In this example the main thing is an accurate calculation, and when I say accurate calculation, it is about candidate moves. There are some sequences that have to be calculated, but in order to solve this one, you need to find one nice detail. This example is one more time, the example which I failed to solve. It is that I usually like the exercises which I fail to solve. I think than the combination number two is the hardest, and this one is on the second place. The third hardest is the combination number three, and then the combination number four. The fifth combination is easiest.

My games from Elitserien final, Part 2/3

It is time to get back to chess, after some posts that were not related to chess.
The regular readers surly noticed that I did not published details about my second and third game in Elitserien final.
I do not want to skip that, despite the fact that I missed GM norm in these two games.
In this article it will be the game from eight round that I needed to win, in order to play for GM norm in the last round and in order to secure a place in Elitserien 2013/2014 for Eksjö S.K.
It developed that I could play a draw and one of these tasks would be fulfilled, and with some luck in pairings, even the second task.

A big pictorial raport, Glasgow and Dublin

Today, I will continue with my pictorial reports from my last travels.
When in Edinburgh, it is good idea to visit Glasgow (and vice verse) as you can reach Glasgow by train or bus, and it takes about one hour (or even quicker).
This time I travelled to Glasgow mainly to watch football, and if you are interested in more photos of the largest Scottish city you can look at my pictorial reports from the summer 2012:
Pictorial report from Glasgow (and Edinburgh) from Summer 2012

Glasgow

Even if I slightly prefer Glasgow Celtic, I do not mind watching Glasgow Rangers, thought they are in the fourth rank of Scottish football now (due to financial irregularity in the past).

It was unusually cold for this time of year (even for Swedish standards) but it did not bother Glasgowians to enjoy in Saturday

However, my favourite club from Glasgow is Partick Thistle F.C.
They won against Livingstone with 6-1. Jags are leading Scottish division one, and despite of absence of Rangers, Glasgow will have derby next season. I Enjoyed extremely at Firhill!

Dublin

This was my first visit to the capital of Ireland.

During my visit, Republic Ireland played a match against Austria, but I did not went on that event.

If you are in Dublin, it is a must to taste Guinness.

Enjoy the pictures!

The Temple Bar, the most famous pub in Dublin 

Trinity college

The Temple Bar, part of the city with pubs, art galeries and restaurants

Dublin Castle 

Trinity College