I intend to follow Jethro Tull’s advice and continue “living in the past” (completely taken out of context to suit my own purpose) a little while more. So, did I mention it before, that my Danish Club, Brönshöj, won “Xtra-Con skakligaen”, the Danish first division? I might have. Today’s game was played in the sixth round, a key round where we faced one of the strongest teams in the league “Aarhus/Skolerne”. To make it more of a challenge we were missing two of our strongest players and had to bring in the reserves. In the end we won the match with 5-3, with the four last boards scoring 3½. There, that’s the linchpin.
Author Archives: Tiger
European Team Championship of Go
Sweden vs. Finland, that classical ice hockey match, was lately played on a quite different turf; the go board. I get the feeling that Sweden won the match, but I have not been able to corroborate it. The go media still seems obscure to me. However, yesterday evening I followed this exciting go game between two of the strongest Nordic players Antti Törmänen and Fredrik Blomback (part of the above mentioned match). So, there we are again. I’m trying to make sense of a go game played between two players much stronger than myself. Feel free to either laugh or enjoy:
So, Fredrik Blomback won. I have earlier recommended Antti Törmänen’s excellent homepage “Go of Ten” and now he has posted a very interesting thesis, “Building a Human Master”, dealing with “how expertice is developed” in chess and go. Ought to be interesting stuff.
Regressing further on the last topic.
So, continuing where I left off last: After four hours we were leading 3-2 with hopes of getting 1½ out of the last games. Thorbjörn Bromann had a splendid season on board 6 and as it turned out he got to seal our opponents’ fate:
This result meant that we only needed a draw on the last board, where Nikolaj Palm was a pawn up in a rook endgame and only had to ask for it. With this draw we became the champions (and Nikolaij our top scorer which is what the next entry will be about).
”It was a team effort”
Seldom has this phrase felt more comfortable in my mind than when I reflect on how my Danish Team, Brönshöj Skakförening, won the Danish Elite Division (Xtra-con ligaen) last weekend. In the end it came down to a half point difference between us and the runner up, but it was not clear who would win until the last moment.
Before the last round we were half a point behind Skanderborg, the team we were to play and who beat us in a similar situation last year. We had to score 4½-3½ and we did. So how come we won? Due to a detail here and a detail there? Luck? Because of outstanding personal performances? Well, partly yes on all three counts, but most of all because we could rely on one another. In my case that meant that I did not play for a win with Black against Mads Andersen like a complete idiot (like I did last year), but rather kept the game going, trying to figure how the other games went. After an early draw on board 5, we were the first team to get a whole point:
A little later I accepted a repetition of moves seeing that my team seemed to be doing well all over the line. After four hours we were leading 3-2 with hopes of getting 1½ out of the last games. To be continued…