Swedish Championship starts on saturday

I have been trying to save my superlatives for a tournament that really stands out as well arranged, smooth and professional, but as it turns out it is already time to pay up. Every tournament I have played in the last year has been well arranged, but The Visma Chess Tournament, last month, really stands out. It is nice to experience a tournament with such a relatively short history, which still manages to deliver… even that which you did not expect from the beginning. Although I didn’t score as well as I might have expected, I still played some exciting chess and now I am really (I mean really) looking forward to the Swedish Championship. I’m especially excited about the strong field, with 9 GM:s and 4/5 of the Sweden’s Olympic Team participating. So, who is the favourite? I have mentioned Emanuel Berg, Hans Tikkanen, Jonny Hector and myself before, but I have saved a game from the main favourite that was played a few weeks back:

18 games in 10 days

After a shared first place in Svein’s Memorial, in Oslo, I continued to the Swedish city of Växjö, in order to play in the Visma Chess Tournament GM-group (both tournaments I will come back to later). My ambition was to play some good games and not worry too much about the final result. After a good start with 2/3 I woke up on the third day and felt great. I put on my favourite shirt, had breakfast and got off to a good start in my game. Or, rather, so I thought. In reality things were far from clear and my unrealistic attitude eventually caught up with me.

Next time I wear that shirt, I will do things differently.