There are so many things that happened in the last three days that it can be very hard to put it in a short report as this.
What actually happened on the chess board will be analysed in the next articles, as I will focus on results and social aspects of the competition.
The most important thing is the champion, and this time it is
S.K. Bosna Sarajevo, with very strong team, overtaking the title from Siroki Brijeg, who won the title last year.
Celik Zenica, Zeljeznicar and Drina are relegated.
About the league
In the last three rounds, SK Bosna won their matches, as expected, and the main battle was for the second and third place, which was the places that guaranty the place in European Chess Club Cup.
Also, very interesting was in the relegation battle.
Some of the clubs was at the same point in the both battles (HSK Napredak Sarajevo).
Rank table
| Rk. | SNo | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 8 | ŠK Bosna, Sarajevo | 9 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 17 | 41.0 | 0 |
| 2 | 3 | ŠK Široki Brijeg, Široki Brijeg | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 33.0 | 0 |
| 3 | 4 | ŠK Rudar, Prijedor | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 30.0 | 0 |
| 4 | 6 | ŠK Alpong, Sarajevo | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 28.0 | 0 |
| 5 | 7 | ŠK Slavija, Istočno Sarajevo | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 26.0 | 2 |
| 6 | 2 | HŠK Napredak, Sarajevo | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 26.0 | 0 |
| 7 | 1 | ŠK Glasinac, Sokolac | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 25.0 | 0 |
| 8 | 10 | ŠK Čelik, Zenica | 9 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 24.0 | 0 |
| 9 | 5 | ŠK Drina, Zvornik | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 25.5 | 0 |
| 10 | 9 | ŠK Željezničar, Sarajevo | 9 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 11.5 | 0 |
Here is the table.
In the seventh round Glasinac won against Slavia, and everybody thought that Slavia is already in the second rank of Bosnian chess, when the club from East Sarajevo won against Napredak with huge score of 5-1, and in the last round won against Siroki Brijeg with 3,5-2,5.
It was miraculous save.
In the last round Celik and Drina played very tense match for the place in Premier League.
If Celik won, they would stay and even Glasinac would leave the league.
Even my club Napredak was in a danger of losing high against Bosna Sarajevo, and leaving the league in that scenario.
Glasinac took very little game points, most because of his weak sixth board, and very weak performance of IM Atif Dumpor.
There is a big gap between his ambitions and ungrounded opinion about his own play compared with reality.
Slavia also had some problems with very weak sixth board, and Celik was very uneven...winning against Siroki, but drawing against Drina in the last round.
The most pleasant surprise was the team of Alpong Sarajevo, rated on the ninth place, but in the last round they played for a silver medal.
Their player on the second board, IM Nestorovic Nikola performed 2770, starting with 7 out of 7, drawing in the winning position against GM Ante Brkic in the next to last round, and then he lost in the last round against GM Popovic Dusan.
His opponent on the second board was 5 GMs and 3 IM.
Drina Zornik had a weak team, but took some points in the beginning and was in the battle for survive for the last moment.
Zeljeznicar Sarajevo was there only to fill the league, and their players are weaker then they thought.
The total amount of game points says for it self.
All in all, the league was interesting til the last move.
As the Bosnian journalist wrote, there were never so interesting league.
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| SK Bosna Sarajevo, The Champions |
About organisation...
In order to understand very complicated system of chess organisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you need to understand very complicated political system in this country, and that is the last thing that I would like to write about on this blog.
Because of that you can occasionally see, the Elo rating of Bosnian players inactive, despite that there were never a huge problems to actually get the money for FIDE fee, but the real problem is very hard to understand administrative problems.
What it has to do with this league?
Well, not much directly, but as the three regional chess federations are rotating in the organisation of the league, this time was the turn of (by a number of clubs and registered members) the biggest one.
However, technical organisation was horrible.
The accommodation in the Hotel Saray was more or less good, but the food for the players who lived there of the full board, was not adequate.
This is the rare occasion that I complain about something on my blog, and the rare occasion the one can complain about Bosnian food.
The second thing was the playing hall.
Situated in the same hall as the Bosna Open A group, but a blunder from the organisers was the number of players who played there.
During the league the temperature in Sarajevo was about +35 degrees, and with around 100 persons in the playing hall, the air condition could not do much.
It was very warm, without fresh air and players are very nervous.
The third thing was the clocks and the arbiters.
We played with dark red DGT clocks, which was usually used for a blitz tournaments in Sarajevo.
Boards was very near to each other, and some players pushed the wrong clocks by mistake.
Some of the arbiters could fix the situation very quickly, but some of them lose more then 10 minutes to fix the clocks, and then it was still not right setup....
The level of voice that some of the players produced during their complains and after the games was much higher then I (and most of the professionals) am used too.
Just to put the things in the right place, my complains (and most of the other players complained too) are somehow relative.
It was not good technical organisation, by the means of Bosnian leagues....but still much better then the some Scandinavian leagues where some of the single matches are played in the basements.
The service of the games and the results on the Internet, the pictures, and the bulletins were very good, and there are the huge job done by Bosnian Rating Administrator, Boris Budimir.
About my club, HSK Napredak Sarajevo
HSK Napredak Sarajevo are stable in the league, and our place is between fourth and seventh place.
With some luck we can finish the third, but with some unlucky conditions we can go out from the league.
This year we replaced IM Goric Esad, with IM Mujic Hamza, but the later got sick and could not play the league.
This was the huge blow on our ambitions.
However, we started well, but we lose our match against Siroki, when we could win.
Later on, when we played against Alpong, we lost 3,5-2,5....somehow unlucky, and our chances for the third place just vanished.
We have very good guys and professionals GM Alojzije Jankovic and GM Dragan Kosic on the first and second board.
I am very stable on the third board, doing my 4,5 out of 9, the third time in a raw, when the average Elo on my board is higher then my Elo.
The main problem is that we did not won the single game on the fifth and sixth table.
If I remember well, we did not won the single game on the sixth board last year too.
On the fourth board, we have the legend, the man who are optimist of the all optimists, FM Sead Rasidovic.
He always make some pluses, despite his suspicious positions.
About my play...
I can not really be satisfied....
All right, I did some plus, but when I performed about 2500 after six games, I did not have stability to make a huge plus in the tournament.
I played two really bad games, like a black hole, and lost everything...
However, I managed to keep the level of my play in the last game drawing against Predojevic with black, and finishing with some plus.
The details about my play will be published in the next articles....
The final word....
That is it for the Bosnian premier league for this year.
This is not the Olympic year, and the next big event is First A Division in August.
The most of the players will play the tournaments in the former Yugoslav republics and the rapid tournaments in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It will probably be the GM tournament in Zenica later this year, and the highest point for Bosnian chess will be the match between World number one Magnus Carlsen, and Bosnian number one Borki Predojevic, in Lillehamer in July.
This match will be broadcasted on the huge screen on one of the main squares in Sarajevo.
I wish Borki good luck in this event, as he will need it more then anything.
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