This is position from my game from round number 5 in Prague.
I was White, and I had big problems to break hard resistance of my opponent, Russian WGM Irina Semenova.
I just won a pawn, but it is clear that she got a lot of compensation.
I have some problems of coordination of my pieces due to pinning on the first rank.
My task is very difficult because there are some pawns hanging as well, so the first thing is how to stabilise the position.
There is something very interesting that can be understand wrongly, and I want to explain.
There are a lot of combinations when solution is at the same time, nice and hard to find.
This combination against Czech International Master Milan Babula is only nice.
For a serious player it should be matter of technique to find a solution in positions like this.
Why I coloured Black king and this pawn structure in the centre?
The king, because it stacked in the centre and has to be the main goal of white´s attack.
This pawn structure, because this is the only thing that protects Black in this position.
February is the shortest month, and that´s why in this traditional article with combinations it will be only 5 combinations.
However, this time I focused on quality not quantity.
All of them are from my mobile tactics app, except the first one which is from one of my old games.
With a huge number of solved combinations during the last half year I think that I eliminated some problems in my play.
It has to do with my last post, but I will let explanation about that for the second part of that article.
All of the combinations in this post hides something deeper for tactical understanding.
In my final rapport from Marienbad GM tournament I wrote that one of the most interesting things that I noticed in my play in 2013 is higher level of defencive abilities.
I also wrote that I am not sure if this is due to increased level of motivation which leads to increased level of resistance in some positions, or it is simply that I play better in defence compared to before.
It takes so much time to recover from two hard tournaments, and one league game and than to analyse nineteen games in depth so I can draw the right conclusions.
For this article I´ll try to show some examples from my games, and let readers draw their own conclusions.
Yesterday was played fifth round in Swedish league, Elitserien.
It was not successful day for my club, nor for me.
That Eksjö SK is weak team in single rounds was known even before this round, but we could not expect to loose 6,5-1,5.
I was white on the first board, and my part in this tragedy was full.
I lost my game (second in a row, if I count the last game in Czech Republic), although it happened so much in it that maybe is better to publish some moves and than leave to readers to decide for themselves.
During this weekend majority of clubs played more than one match, so there significant influence on the table.
After more than 20 days of chess adventures in Czech Republic, I am at home again.
There is so much to write about and everything can not be done in just one rapport, but I will summarise things about the tournament, my impressions, my play, and also to show most dramatic blunder in my chess career.
My feeling are very mixed, mostly satisfied with my efforts in both tournaments, but luck of crucial point from the very last round in Marienbad gives me a very bad feeling.
My first participation in the Prague Open tournament didn’t end with a very good result.
5½/9 and some lost Elo points was a bit of a disappointment as far as chess goes, but still I cannot be too dissatisfied with my decision to play there.
Prague is a very good destination during winter, the dark narrow streets of Old Town gives a mysterious impression and the squares are beautiful when covered with snow.
And as opposed to during the summer, you don’t have to fight off thousands of tourists to walk across the Charles Bridge , second most famous bridge in Europe (The most famous is Old Bridge in Mostar J.B.)
After the tournament in Prague, Czech tour continues in Marienbad.
Marienbad is small town in western Czech Republic, very near to Czech border with Germany.
A difference from Prague Open is that in Marienbad there will be closed tournaments as well.
I arrived yesterday and settled down in Hotel Polonia, where the playing hall is situated.
Prague Open 2013 is over.
At the end I shared 4-7 place, and if I consider that I was rated on 15th place, than I can considered my result as good.
Nothing special but good.
It is a good thing to be critical about own performances.
It is also very good to be not to critical.
Michael de Verdier can not be satisfied with his performance as he lost his touch after defeat in the sixth round.
Cristopher Krantz started good, than he had bad times, and at the end he improved his result a bit.
Today is Prague covered with a snow.
I thought that could be a good sign for my game.
Everything went really well and I thought that I am going to play the best game out of my games in the tournament.
After only twenty moves my position was completely winning.
I started to play a bit uninterested and my opponent got back to the game.
I tried everything to win, but I did not manage.
Only a draw.
There is nothing much to say about this round.
We played two third parts of the tournament and there were some positive things and some negative too.
Mickhael lost his game and due to bad pairings for tomorrows round his chance for the last norm vanished.
I had a free day on the job, and took a draw against the chess legend Josef Pribyl.
He played solid opening and minimised my chances to complicate the game....
It is very interesting moment in the tournaments when the rounds 4 and 5 are played on the same day.
It means that actually one day at the evening you finished the first third part of the tournament, and after the next day you already played more than a half of the tournament.
As today was a double round, I did not wrote the rapport from the third round in order to get some quality sleep.
Everything did not went as expected, but I still perform over my rating, so with a score of 4 out of 5 I should not complain to much.
Michael de Verdier also has 4 out of 5 while Mladen Gajic and Cristopher Krantz did not do very good on the double round day.
Maybe a luck of experience?
Today was the very successful day for those who are
living on the edge.
Michael de Verdier won with white pieces, while Cristopher Krantz won with black.
Mladen Gajic also won his game.
I was black against player rated E2146 and it was very tough, but at the end I won the game.
It is as much as thirty five players with two out of two and tomorrow will be even more harder than today.
After two nice days that mostly Michael and I, and occasionally Cristopher, spent doing a sightseeing, it was the time to do some work.
In the first round of every open without accelerated pairing system it is usual that stronger players will play against lower rated players.
Michael de Verdier won without any problems, while I had to play pretty complicated game in which I thought that I lost control sometime, but blunder check on the computer showed that it was the very decent game by me.
Only this fact that I am going to write an article about Prague Open 2013 and Marianbad GM tournament 2013 is achievement in it self.
One of the first article on this blog was exactly the rapport from Marienbad 2012.
This time it is not retrospective rapport. It is an introduction to these two tournaments which are my first tournaments in 2013.
You can also read about other little things that inflicted the beginning of 2013.
