Manhem GM tournament, and other plans....

The period after my last tournament (which was Bosnian Premier League) was the period of inactivity when it is about my chess.
I did some occasional training sessions (for others) and I did some plans, but most of all, I tried to rest.
Now, when my next tournament is just around the corner, I need to write some lines about the tournament, but also about my plans and thoughts for this season.
When talking about my next tournament, it will be one of the tournaments where I am regular player, and one of the peak points of my calendar.
How it will be different from the last year, you can find in the text.

Solution for July combinations

It is July, and it is not the month when you suppose to do the most of a work.
That´s why, dear reader, I did not published very hard combinations.
The purpose of these was to keep you a little with a chess board, or in the most cases the electronic (screen) version of it.
As most of you noticed, in the last period blog was lacking very serious articles about chess improvement, trainings and deep analysis.
This is of course just a temporary...

July combinations

Okay, the Swedish Championship is over, and as you can see, it was not the end of the World, as you can still read this lines.
The chess calendar in Sweden is approaching it´s middle, with a GM tournament in Gothenburg in the middle of August, but before the focus of this blog move to that competition, it is the time for our regular rubric.
The new (old) Swedish Champion is Hans Tikkanen, who played even in the play off against Marley Grandelius, but under the worse conditions (Black pieces and minute less in the last game).
On the third place was Tiger Hillarp Persson.

Armagedon

de Verdier´s ingenious insight

Well, the tournament is approaching its finish and we can conclude that from the main favourites, only Grandelius and Tikkanen have the chance to win the tournament after today’s round.

The results went Marley’s way today, and the whole round felt as if the top players were waiting for the deciding two rounds to come.

Swedish Chamiponship, round 6

This is the position from today´s round of Swedish Championship.
This is a high class chess!
There are a lot of nice possibilities for White in this position, but Marley Grandelius decided to keep his options open, and he moved his king on b1.
Well, by doing so he was forced to anticipate Black´s (Pia Cramling) counter break in the centre, e6-e5.
He did that on the best possible way...

Silenzio stampa scaramantico

de Verdier´s explanations - Swedish Championship

The first three rounds of the Swedish championship produced a lot of nice combinations and fascinating games. Round 4 was no worse.  
The high number of decisive games delights the spectators so far, except the members of the Swedish Facebook group “A draw is good for both players” (loose translation).

Swedish championship in Örebro, after three rounds

After de Verdier´s explanations of the very first round of Swedish championship, it is now my turn to write about the first third part of the competition.
In a lead is young Swedish Grandmaster, Marley Grandelius.
He is the highest rated player, so this is not surprise, but it has to be mentioned that he played against two players from the other end of the table (according to Elo), the players that are part of colonna destra.
In the first three round there were some lonely unexpected results, but in 27 games it is just an exception, not trend or something.

de Verdier explains - First round of Swedish championship

Today the Swedish Championship started. 

My last participation was back in 2008, but in 2010 I was the official commentator of the main tournament. 

This year is the third year in a row that I follow the event from abroad, but not with less interest, it should be mentioned.

Who will win Swedish championship?

Tomorrow starts Swedish Individual Championship, in many classes.
On this blog I will focus only on SM, the highest class.
It does not mean that it would not be interesting in other classes, it is just that is not as attractive for wide public of this blog.
In this article I will explain who are the favourites, and why I think so...

Exceptions

In this article my intention is to show some positions in which there general rules can be applied on the position, but as we can see the positions are exceptions from the rules.
My intention is not only to teach you something with this text (although those who are interested can draw some conclusions) but to try to be funny.
I have to warn you that this is not the most precise article, so sometimes the solution can    
be work out by some other general rule which is more important in given position...

Solution for June combinations

This position is from the game
IM Bejtovic Jasmin - GM Pikula Dejan ,
The question was about black´s move Bg4.

1...Bg4??
2. Rxc7!

This was my trick (Black did not fall for this and played 1...Nf5). White is winning now.

2...Qxc7
3. Qxg4 +-