The Stonewall Guru…

You might say that there are a few of those around; Moskalenko, Ulibin, Agdestein, Karlsson, to mention a few of the Dutch Stonewall’s active practitioners. However, today I will present you with a game by one of it’s most stubborn fans, Evgeny Gleizerov. I have happened to sit along him many a time at different tournaments and it seems to me that he always plays the Stonewall and… that he always wins. I like to learn chess through intense study of one player or one theme at a time. When I was striving to become a Grand Master I realized that my weakness was endgames and strategical play so I spent many months studying players like Rubinstein, Valery Salov and Epishin. I learned a lot. In the coming week I will give an example of how this kind of study might look, through the games of Gleizerov. Later this summer I will give a more thorough course on the Stonewall under “coaching”.

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Looking back at Deltalift Open

It is time for me to look back at this weekends venture; Deltalift Open. This year the tournament was staged in a truly magnificent hall (at Hotel Tylösand) of a kind that you seldom encounter at weekend tournaments. I wish I could say that I played well there, but I did not. It was only my second tournament this year and I had the feeling that I was not the only GM that was a bit out of practice. In the end the tournament was deservedly won by Emanuel Berg, who – although he put himself in a few less-than-enviable-positions – managed to navigate the obstacles better than anyone else. Some of his games are covered at Lars Grahn’s excellent blog (for you who speak Swedish) and I will not comment on them here. In Emanuel’s shadow the second place was shared between GM Stellan Brynell, the promising junior Linus Johansson and GM Ralf Åkesson. In my view Stellan played the games of the highest quality during the tournament. His sixth round game against the Norwegian IM Petter Haugli is a nice example of how to play with the bishop pair against a knight and bishop…

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If you subscribe you can find another game on the theme of “bishop pair in the ending” under “coaching”.

Looking forward to Deltalift Open

At the very last second I managed to get an invitation to Deltalift Open, which starts tomorrow! This years edition will become a veritable wasps nest with a big part of the Swedish chess elite participating. I’m looking forward to playing again and hope to continue in the same style as that in which I finished last months “Påskturneringen” in Norrköping. In that tournament I got to play Black in the ultimate round against Mikhail Ulibin:

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