Saturday 13 July 2013

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.



He quickly got the bishop pair against Pontus Carlsson’s Scotch Four Knights, which was transformed into a bishop vs. knight endgame. Even with an extra pawn he couldn’t win though, Carlsson defended pretty well. 
Draw.

Tikkanen should try to play aggressively against Brynell to try to win, and as Black he again went for 1.-Nc6 to try something unorthodox. 
However, Stellan quickly went for a position where he absolutely cannot lose but might have some slight pressure. His dream of nine consecutive peaceful results is still alive! 
Draw.
Tiger Hillarp Persson, probably inspired by Grandelius, decided to avoid the main lines against Smith, who is hoping for good result. 1.b3 happened. They later reached the diagrammed position:

The position is objectively equal. I guess most people, including myself, expected 42.Nd3, with a transfer to e5 in mind. It doesn’t change the objective evaluation of the position but only White can hope for some practical chances. Instead Tiger decided to force a draw with :

42. Nxe6, fxe6 
43. Qxc6, Qb3

and the game soon ended with perpetual checks. 
Draw.


Two games ended with decisive results. Jonny Hector is having a bad tournament but hasn’t lost his appetite for chess. He went for a complicated position against Lindberg and won a nice game.

Earlier in the tournament Jesper Hall entered some Inception stage at one part of his commentary, watching himself watching his own commentary in some infinite loop. (The same thing once happened to Mr. Kenneth Hastings). 

Today he rightly pointed out that the following maneuver was nice from Hector.

How to put more pieces into the attack of the Black king?

33. Rf3!?

The rook is taboo because of the discovered attack after 33.-Qxf3?? 34.Bxe5+.

33.-Re7 34. Nb4! Qc4 38. Rb3

..and in this way the rook joined the attack with fatal consequences. Hector won.


Pia Cramling won her third game in the tournament against Wiedenkeller. She nicely showed why rook and bishop works better together than rook and knight. 
Wiedenkeller started well but only scored a draw in the last four rounds.
Tomorrow Grandelius plays Hector and Tikkanen plays Smith.

Plac.NamnNationRatingKlubbPoäng TB1  TB2  TB3 
1Grandelius NilsSWE2573Lunds Ask5.000.016.50
2Tikkanen HansSWE2528Lunds Ask4.500.015.00
3Smith AxelSWE2461Lunds Ask4.500.012.50
4Cramling PiaSWE2524Sk Team Viking4.000.011.00
5Hillarp Persson TigerSWE2528Lunds Ask3.500.513.25
6Brynell StellanSWE2484Limhamns Sk3.500.512.25
7Hector JonnySWE2509Limhamns Sk3.000.010.00
8Carlsson PontusSWE2516Eksjö Sk2.500.08.25
9Wiedenkeller MichaelLUX2475Sk Rockaden, Sthlm2.500.07.75
10Lindberg BengtSWE2410Solna Ss2.000.07.00

In other news, I follwed the draw of the qualification stages of the Europa League with great interest. 
The most interesting encounter of the next round will be Malmö FF against Hibernian of Scotland. 
Who knows, maybe even Mr. Kenneth Hastings will be in the away stand in Malmö when the two teams face eachother on Thursday. 
If not him, surely there will be other people linked with this blog that will root for the Hibees.



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