Sudden battle for the first place - Part one

Bejtovic - McNab

It is time to write some lines about events on the chessboard.
This time I can be satisfied with overall presentation.
My performance in Glasgow was the best in 2012. 
However, this did not came as surprise for me, as I felt already after Bosnian Team Championship on Jahorina, that my form is going up.
It really did not happened something special in Glasgow. I just avoided making these blunders which followed me during 2012. One more thing was very important, and that is that I won all my games against lower rated opponents which usually is a guaranty of good result.
Chess rapport from Glasgow will be a little different from my previous rapports, when I provide critical positions from all my games.

Great Britain in pictures and words - Part two

Before the last round

This is the second part of my reportage from Great Britain. As I said, it will contain information and pictures from Glasgow´s West End, Partick Thistle Football Club,Edinburgh and chess related photos.
After couple of days we already had routine and while things were pretty good on the chess front we could really enjoy in Glasgow.
We both were very interested in visiting Glasgow´s West End, as it can be described as bohemian part with a lots of cafés, tea rooms and pubs.
Some of the Glasgow´s most significant sights are situated in the West End.
One of these is Glasgow´s University main building. That is not all, as my (and Michael´s) favourite football club from Glasgow is also situated in the West End, Partick Thistle Football Club.

De Verdier´s opinion

In action

Seeing as this is my first article for Jasmin’s blog, maybe I should start by introducing myself to its readers. My name is Michael de Verdier, I am 23 years old and I currently live in Malta where I work in the business process outsourcing industry.

I play for the same Swedish team as the blog’s famous proprietor, Eksjö SK, and have done so since the 2006/2007 season.  Although my ambitions in chess have decreased lately, I consider myself an ambitious amateur.

When me and Jasmin were looking for a tournament to play in July, we started by looking at big events in Spain such as the Benasque Open.  However, seeing as I currently live in the very south of Europe and Jasmin had spent a lot of time in his native Bosnia lately we decided to go for a more northern venue.

Great Britain in pictures and words - Part one

Edinburgh

It is very challenging task to put everything important from this trip in just one rapport and that's why I decided to divide it in a few rapports.
The first one (the one you are reading right now) is a reportage about the trip in Great Britain, including  a big pictorial rapport from London, Glasgow and Edinburgh (and it will be divided in two parts).
The second one will be chess related rapport from round 1-9 and a few thoughts about my presentation there.
The third one will be Michael De Verdier´s  rapport from this trip, including both, the trip and the chess part of it.

Actualities

It is a very relieving feeling to see my rating online again.
Well, not just mine but rating of all Bosnian players.
Still, I am not so proud of it but it is better to have one than to lose precious energy by explaining this issue to all organisers.
However, you can find all details in following link :
Rating for Bosnia and Herzegovina .
I am rated number 16 in the country, but at least I am still the best in the town, followed by Arapovic and than Dumpor.
This is not something which is new to me because I got all information in good time by Bosnian rating administrator.

A new Elo list

This is a time when FIDE published the new Elo list and as they publish rating every two months it seems that it is nothing special about this.
However, for the first time in history FIDE published a list for rapid and blitz tournaments.
It can be said that this a step forward, but there are a lot negative aspects of this introduction.
I will share some thoughts about this and show some statistical informations.
First of all let´s talk about these rating lists for rapid and blitz time controls...

A first half of 2012 in pictures

As it is left only two days in first half of year 2012 I decided to publish a set of pictures related to chess, mostly from tournaments where I played, but some pictures is not chess related, and some are related to forthcoming events.
A pictures will be published in random order and some of them are not taken be me (it will be marked).

All you need to know about same colour bishop endgames

White to move

Today's football match between Spain and Portugal seems really boring in a first half and I thought that publishing a solution for bishop endgames can be as much interesting to do.
In position number one, a question was can white win this position.
An answer is negative, as white can not oppose black bishop from d7.
1. Bc8, Bg2
2. Bg4, Bb7
Now, white can try a same technique as with a b(g) pawn
3. Bf3 
...but that doesn´t help him, because black has enoguh

An endgame exercise

White on move

These days I am in a very good mood for bishop endgames.
That is why I decided to share with readers some more analyses which I made from simple positions from endgame books.
This is one of my favourite examples. Not so long time ago I published analyses of a very similar bishop endgame under the title Problem solving techniques .
This time I played a little with the position and I switched everything for one line  right.
A question is can white win this position.
I shall publish a solution in one of my next posts, but I need to give reader some hints about position.

Instructive endgames

Imagination in chess 514

It is very hard to imagine a serious chess player who didn´t at least partly read fantastic book Imagination in chess by Pata Gaprindashvili. 
My next example is from that book (number 514). Basically, this book is more about combinations but there is some examples from my favourite part of chess game, endgame.
In this example it is black who tries to win this position.
White defence idea is to put bishop on diagonal h1-a8 and than take on f4 and g3 before black pawn on b4 promotes.
Right now, black needs help from his king.

Solution for combinations (2/5)

Zachrisson-Bejtovic

I never showed solution for 2 out of 5 combinations which I published for about one month ago.
One of these positions is from Swedish league from late 2010 against one amateur player (which, as a matter of fact had a pretty nice results that year).
By playing very original game very soon I got very serious advantage but I missed some good continuations and my opponent fought very well.
A game was decided in mutual time trouble.
I had few promising continuations but a most annoying thing was white knight on b5 which came into the play from being misplaced on a3 for whole game.

Tournaments in July

Click to enlarge

If you look at the FIDE calendar you can notice that number of tournaments rapidly increase during a summer months.
There are objective reasons behind this.
There are a lot amateurs who wants to play more during their free time which forces organisers to organise their tournaments during summer.
Of course, a professional players tries to take advantage of this and plays as much as possible.

Games from Jahorina, Part two

Diagram 1

This is a second part of my games from Jahorina.
As I said , I was somehow optimistic about my chances despite bad result in first five games (my play was quite good).
My opponent in round six was very strong Serbian GM Robert Markus with high Elo of 2628 points.
I played one of my best games in 2012, and according to many spectators this game was a best game of whole league.
This game was very similar to some other games which I played in 2012 and this time I was very cautious about playing f4-f4.

Games from Jahorina, Part one

Diagram 1

Reportage from Bosnian team championship will be separated in few parts. I would like to present my games which will be done in two parts and one separate report will be about championship, some interesting positions, jokes and so on.
First of all I need to say something about rules. Every team is playing with six players and with maximum of two foreign players. It means that on the third board you can meet almost all best Bosnian players ( a few Grandmasters and International masters were playing in the best teams on lower or higher boards). Basically, on the third board I had GM tournament with average rating of around 2400.

Jahorina 2012

Click to enlarge

This article is not about Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo 1984, but about Bosnian team championship in chess.
A big detailed rapport will follow later and for this introduction I will publish some photos and write some interesting facts.
A very first time in their history, SK Siroki Brijeg became champion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and SK Bosna (four time European Champion) finished on second place.
It was a very close battle for third place, and Slavija Ist. Sarajevo clinched it by 0,5 game-point in front of my club S.K. Napredak Sarajevo.
Championship was played on Olympic mountain Jahorina, very near to Sarajevo.
As I said, I´ll publish some photos for now, before I write a big reportage with more chess things in it.