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...

The championship will be played in Örebro, small city in middle of Sweden.
It starts tomorrow, and will be played the next nine days.
All the information can be found on chess results.
Here is the cross table with all participants in highest group:

Plac.		Namn	Nation	Rating	Klubb	Poäng	TB1	TB2	TB3
1		Wiedenkeller Michael	LUX	2475	Sk Rockaden, Sthlm	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
2		Smith Axel	SWE	2461	Lunds Ask	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
3		Lindberg Bengt	SWE	2410	Solna Ss	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
4		Tikkanen Hans	SWE	2528	Lunds Ask	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
5		Grandelius Nils	SWE	2573	Lunds Ask	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
6		Carlsson Pontus	SWE	2516	Eksjö Sk	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
7		Brynell Stellan	SWE	2484	Limhamns Sk	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
8		Hillarp Persson Tiger	SWE	2528	Lunds Ask	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
9		Hector Jonny	SWE	2509	Limhamns Sk	0.0	0	0.0	0.00
10		Cramling Pia	SWE	2524	Sk Team Viking	0.0	0	0.0	0.00

As you can see, there are some very well known names, and some of them are pretty unknown.

I will devide these players in four categories, according to my predictions:

Pole positions:

Nils Grandelius, Hillarp Persson Tiger

Why these two?

Among the candidates, these two grandmasters has the best results recently.

While Nils shared the first place in Sigeman & Co tournament in Malmö and won the Golden Sands tournament in Bulgaria, Tiger won the tournament in Oslo.

This year, the highest group is filled according to Elo rating, and there were no place for manipulations, as in the previous championships (although some places are reserved by standing in previous Championships).

It will in many ways suit for these two players.

Nils, as I objectively believe he is the best player in the tournament, and Tiger, as the factor of luck will be minimised, and his potential highest level is very high.

The second row:

Jonny Hector, Pontus Carlsson, Hans Tikkanen

Jonny and Hans has probably no worse chance then the first two players, but their recent form is not guaranty of victory.

I think that statistic works against Hans, as it will be very rare occasion if he win the third time in a row.

Pontus Carlsson, is somehow slightly weaker then opposition, but he is unpredictable.

As he is the member of the same club as me, I will support him (and Nils).

The golden middle

Pia Cramling, Stellan Brynell

Both of them can play on the very high level, but their solid style of play is not a guaranty of victory in such a short tournament.

As Stellan said in his interview about this championship, he needs some luck in the critical moments, in order to win the competition.

Colonna destra

Lindberg, Smith, Wiedenkeller

Wiedekeller is not a professional player, and it will be the big surprise if he wins, although I do not think that has no chances at all.

His rating is the best prove of the level of his play, and he can be the dark horse of the tournament.

Lindberg and Smith are qualified by the results from the last year championship.

Their play in Visma GM tournament shows that they are the least likely to win the championship.