It has been almost three weeks since I last posted and it is mostly due to the fact that I had to prioritize writing other things. I will try to post once from Guernsey, but otherwise it will be far between the entries up until mid December, when I will have more time again. From a chess point of view I had a horrible tournament in Västerås. I arrived in quite a pessimistic mood, since I had spent all my time preparing for the new edition of Tiger’s Modern and had no clue what to play with White. However, after blundering a pawn on f7 in round 4 and surviving that, I kind of felt that things were going my way. On the Saturday I played a decent game against Daniel Semcesen that I failed to win in a most horrible manner. (I was planning to post this game, but then decided against it.) Then I won against upcoming Swedish talent Jonathan Westerberg. (I was planning to post this game, but then I decided against it.) By the time this game finished I was starting to feel quite ill and when I woke up on Sunday morning my head felt like a pot of porridge. In this state I offered a draw after ten moves in order to save my energy for the last round. I did not plan to post this game. In the last game I was half a point after my opponent and decided to go “all in” and went down in flames against the tournament winner Normunds Miezis. (I was considering to post this game too, but eventually decided against it.) The upside of the tournament was the tournament itself. The director, André Nilsson, has an ambitious outlook on the arrangement and chess in general and the staff made everything run smoothly. I am looking forward to next year’s edition. So, what to post? In the end I decided to comment on a game that caught my eye during Manhem’s Chess Week and make all those who play the Giucio Piano happy, since it is a game where the pawns are exchanged on the d-file and White trades a knight for Black’s white-squared bishop. How to evaluate such a position?
Guernsey Chess Festival starts on Sunday.