So far, so good

This is the period of a year when I usually play some chess in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This year is not an exception, and in two days starts traditional Bosna Open.
This year a bit later then usual, due to late start of European Individual Chess Championship.
After Bosna 2013 I will play Bosnian premier league, which will be played in Sarajevo.
I am not completely sure, but I think that capital city is for the first time host of the league.
Bosnian premier league is played in one period, nine days, which is very suitable for professional players.
On this blog you can find more information about that competition after Bosna Open.

After these two competitions it will be the half of season for me, and I will draw a line to see how is everything going in my chess.

Today I will do a little review of my results in 2013.

In the beginning of year I played in Prague Open.

My result was good, and with 7 out of 9 I could finish on shared fourth place.

Still, I did not improved my elo substantial, because the tournament was weaker then before.

The main positive thing was that I was undefeated.

Immediately after that tournament I played in Marianske Lazne, and there despite the tragedy in the last round, I did not played well.

I was quite solid, but my energy was not on a high level, and I got three strange defeats.

The last game there influenced me so much, that I lost my game in the Swedish league, week after that.

However I manged to improve my form in the Swedish league, and soon I started to play really well.

I was near to score GM norm.

In between the round in Swedish league I played in Cannes in France.

My result there was fantastic and I was very near to score one more GM norm.

As I predicted before that tournament, Cannes Open was the highest point of the spring 2013.

After that, I took a small pause, in order to accumulate my energy and to prepare for the next tournaments.

I was interested to play in April, and went to Sonde cup, where I won my group.

I improved my Elo further and a joy was complete.

In that moment I took very bad decision.

I went for Copenhagen Chess Challenge 2013, and I can see now, from the time distance, that it was not good tournament for me.

The whole four days with the double rounds and a time control of 90 minutes +30 seconds for the whole game, was not the things that could suit me.

At the end I finished on +2, and with 5,5 out of 9 it looked not so bad, but my expected score was 7 out of 9, and only that fact shows that it was not good decision to play there.

The overall level of the players in the tournament was lower then in the tournaments where I usually play, but I could not beat them all, just because of a high tempo with short time control and double rounds.

This mistake will be not repeated!

My Elo dropped, and it is just as I erased my good tournament in Cannes.

Still, the feeling in this year is very good, things moved forward, and I hope to perform well in the next two tournaments.

The title of this text explains for it self....so far so good....but it can be better.

Chess and Life will be a bit inactive in the next week, due to my participation in Bosna 2013, but readers can expect a lot of articles after that.

Bosna 2013

Chess Club Bosna Sarajevo, four times Champion of Europe, organise 43rd International Chess Tournament.
Tournament will be played between 01 and 08 June in Sarajevo.
It is one of the three oldest open tournaments in World.
The good thing about this tournament is that there is a rating floor at 2200/2300 Elo points.
The highest group is 2300+ and B group is 2200-.
The players between 2200 and 2300 can choose in which group they want to play.
The huge majority of them are already in B group, and that makes A group very strong.
In the focus of this blog it will be only A group.
Right now there are 30 players on the starting list, and among them are seventeen (17) Grandmasters.
It gives me a great opportunity to play against very strong opponents, not depending on my form.
Here you can find the starting list:

Starting rank list

No.			Name	FideID	FED	Rtg
1		GM	Erdos Viktor	719978	HUN	2641
2		GM	Kozul Zdenko	14502879	CRO	2624
3		GM	Predojevic Borki	930849	BIH	2616
4		GM	Markus Robert	921637	SRB	2606
5		GM	Nikolic Predrag	14400014	BIH	2603
6		GM	Durarbayli Vasif	13402935	AZE	2597
7		GM	Banusz Tamas	722413	HUN	2592
8		GM	Papp Gabor	718602	HUN	2570
9		GM	Grandelius Nils	1710400	SWE	2556
10		GM	Djukic Nikola	922412	MNE	2555
11		GM	Kovacevic Aleksandar	903124	SRB	2555
12		GM	Sebenik Matej	14602296	SLO	2527
13		GM	Stojanovic Dalibor	922692	BIH	2514
14		GM	Milanovic Danilo	915483	SRB	2487
15		GM	Can Emre	6302181	TUR	2471
16		IM	Antipov Mikhail Al.	4107012	RUS	2464
17		IM	Nestorovic Dejan	904279	SRB	2428
18		GM	Haznedaroglu Kivanc	6300634	TUR	2427
19		IM	Bejtovic Jasmin	14400936	BIH	2412
20		IM	Nestorovic Nikola	934526	SRB	2405
21		GM	Cabrilo Goran	900249	SRB	2404
22		FM	Rasidovic Sead	14400286	BIH	2381
23		IM	Nestorovic Lazar	937517	SRB	2380
24		IM	Arapovic Vitomir	14401614	BIH	2356
25		FM	Burovic Ismet	14400219	BIH	2351
26			Sutkovic Damir	14400820	BIH	2346
27		IM	Mestrovic Zvonimir	14602059	BIH	2327
28		WGM	Yildiz Betul Cemre	6302920	TUR	2325
29			Forsberg Viktor	1707914	SWE	2286
30			Vucinic Gojko	945374	SRB	2240

If you visit Chessresults, you can easy find the B group, and all the details during the tournament.

For other information you can visit official website: Chess Club Bosna Sarajevo .

Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament 2013

The best Swedish chess tournament, Sigeman & Co Chess is approaching it´s middle part.
It is a round robin tournament with eight players, among them four Swedish players and four very strong Grandmasters from other countries.
The first name of the tournament is former challenger for chess crown, Nigel Short.
Usually, I am not able to visit commentary room and playing venue during previous editions of this tournament, due to my schedule, but this year I grab my chance to visit the tournament.
I was in Hipp in Malmö yesterday, and today.

In the commentary room you can follow very instructive analysis of the living legend, GM Ulf Andersson, and GM Stellan Brynell assisting him.

When I was watching Ulf Andersson sharing his opinions about positions,  I thought that chess must be the simple game, yet I know how hard and complex it is.

I should also mention a funny and pragmatic comments and style of Stellan Brynell (neighbour Stellan, as he is called on Inte bara schack ).

There were some very interesting games in the first three rounds of the tournament.

The most impression on me left, Richard Rapport´s victory against Nigel Short and Grandelius victory over Jonny Hector, when he showed nice technique from the position after the opening.

His play with a bishop, which was better then Hector´s knight was instructive.

Even Ulf Andersson looked impressed, although he already after the opening explained why the bishop is better and what will be the best plan for Nils.

In today's game however a luck turned against Nils, and in favour of Short.
Despite rather easy play in the opening, Nils went wrong and Short got his first full point.
There were a lot of fight in every game, but today´s round was finished earlier then one could expect.

As some players like to say " A short day at the office".

In this picture you can see a playing hall at 18:00 p.m. exactly four hours after the start of the round.

For the players who has possibility to visit the tournament, I can strongly recommend it, as entry is only 30 Swedish crowns (3,5 euro), while those who can not visit it, I can recommend very good coverage on official site, and on Lars Grahn´s blog (link is on the right side of blog).

Solution for May combinations

In this position White´s first move is logical:

1. Rg3

By taking with bishop on e6 Black can achieve a draw, because White needs to take it, but...

1...Re4+

Nice try..

2. Kf1

May combinations

This rubric is not forgotten of course.
For this month I prepared seven combinations.
The seventh is really hard, clearly Grandmaster level, and it is very challenging.

Anyway, we can start from the beginning.
I am sure that many of you will find the first move for White here, but to find all the resources for Black, and to evaluate how this game should finish with the best possible play is another story.
So, White is on move, find the best sequence!

Karjakin´s victory in Norway

Karjakin Sergey won the first super tournament in Norway.
Not without drama in the last rounds, as we are already used to, after tournament in London.
Second place was shared by Nakamura and Carlsen.

EICC finished, rest day in Norway

European Individual Chess Championship finished today.
Despite his lost in the last game, Grandmaster from Ukraine, Moiseenko Alexander won the title for 2013.
He was leading the field during whole tournament and his victory is well deserved.

Norway Chess 2013 and EICC in Legnica 2013

In the first super tournament on Norwegian ground reached it´s last third part.
The middle of the tournament was very interesting and the number of high quality games is very high.
At the same time, an army of strong Grandmasters are fighting for their place in The World Cup in European Individual Chess Championship in Polish town of Legnica.

Solution for strategic exercises - part 2/2

I am still in the process of analysing my games from my tournaments in Denmark, and I am presenting them here in the form of exercises.
I found this method most challenging for the ambitious readers.
This position is somehow the most complicated of all the positions that I published earlier from Denmark, and I decided to devote it the whole article.
In the beginning I would like to repeat the questions which I asked when showing this position.
After answering the questions I will provide the explanations.

Rest day in Norway and Legnica

The first third part of supertournament Norway Chess 2013 ended yesterday, and in the EICC in Polish Legnica today finished seventh round which means that tomorrow is a rest day.
There were really interesting fights in these top events.

Solutions for strategic exercises - Part 1/2

While presenting the solutions for the strategic exercises that was published a couple of days ago I will try to go with a principle of simplicity.
However the position which you can see on the first diagram demands a very deep analysis.
I will leave some points where the  curious reader can go further by themselves and publish the solution in the two parts.
The second part will contain the solution for the position on this diagram. 
The first part are the solution on subjects, weaknesses and prophylactic thinking.

Norway Chess 2013 and EICC 2013 Legnica

Today started the first super tournament in Norway. The participants played the blitz tournament yesterday, and Sergey Karjakin won in front of Carlsen, Anand and Nakamura...
It was very interesting results in the first round...

Find the right move - Strategic exercises

Later on in May, I will publish some combinations in the regular  column of monthly combinations, but today I would like to publish some other sort of exercises.
This sort of exercises which I will publish, can be called for the strategic exercises.
This terminology I adopted from the excellent books of
GM Jacob Aagaard in his serial Grandmaster preparation.
It is somehow different from the usual positional exercises.
For the better understanding I will provide one example in the following lines.
However, the solutions for these positions will be published in the next article.

Sunny day in Copenhagen

It was a time to take a little break from the hard fights on the 64 squares, so I decided to visit a capital of Denmark, Copenhagen.
I took some pictures and I would like to share them with the readers.

Kenneth Hastings "Have you seen what a beautiful weather was there, it was almost like a spring day...."

Queen sacrifice in practise

Even if professional players often can notice most of correct combinations with a queen sacrifice there are no so many chances in practise to demonstrate the symbiosis of skill and beauty.
I am not an exception.
In one of my games from Copenhagen Chess Challenge I found beautiful idea of a queen sacrifice but I never got a chance to do it on the board.
When I started to analyse my games from Danish tournaments, I did not have many doubts about a choice of the first game who I analysed.
Why? You can find it if you read the text.