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).

Friday, 12th April

In the first round came surprise for me. By some strange mistake I thought that I am going to play with Black in round 1,3 and 5, but it was other way round.

I was White in those games.

So I came totally unprepared.

I played with White pieces against German IM Jonathan Carlsted and I won pretty convincingly in only 19 moves.

He played bad in the opening and I got initiative which I converted good.

Saturday, 13th April

In the second round I played against FIDE Master Arne Matthiesen, rated 2367.

He is very solid player, that seldom loses with White pieces.

Considering my good situation on the table, I played very safe and on move 25 he offered me a draw.

It was already move repetition in the equal endgame.

However, we were allowed to offer a draw only after move 25.

In the third round I played against Danish IM Thorbjörn Bromann.

I declined his draw offer around move 25, and pressed him to the point when I got winning advantage.

I missed some good possibilities around move 35, but still the lat chance for wins was at the move 40, when I had couple of seconds on my clock.

I missed that chance, and after the time control, he found only way to secure a draw.

I was not happy with that.

I have to say that we played without increment, with 2 hours for 40 moves, and half an hour for the rest of the game.

Sunday, 14th April

In the fourth round I played against IM Atilla Gergacz from Hungary.

He played very strange in the opening and I got very pleasant advantage. In the critical moment I hesitated to sacrifice more material, and played with a pawn up instead.

I could have won a pawn on more safe way, as in the game he got some counterplay.

In the time trouble he gave me more chances but I did not played well, and he escaped with a draw.

One more game where I was really unhappy with outcome.

In the last round I played against Pelle Bank, rated 2238.

He was the lowest rated in the group and I was White, so I considered my chances much higher than chances of Bromann who has the same number of points before the round, but he players as Black against Arne Matthiesen.

I didn´t played perfect game, as I was very tired of these double rounds, but I managed to win at the end.

Bromann lost his game so I won the first price.

The organisers did a very good job.

We had excellent conditions for play, and they even had a commentator room with a lot of public in there where the players explained some details from the games for the spectators.

In the next days, after some articles which I promised to write, I will write a little more about my games in Sondex Cup.