Category Archives: chess

European Go Congress, arrival

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We were three guys who took the night train from Copenhagen, through Hamburg, to Leipzig, and after some confusion about local transportation, we managed to get ourselves to the destination, Markkleeberg, just south of Leipzig. It is a far more beautiful and interesting place than the wikipedia article gave me reason to believe.

The first round of the open was played today, and Sweden had a reasonably good day: Fredrik Blomback won on board three, and much, much further down the list Victor Damberg, I, Marc Stoehr, and Roger Adamsson scored victories.

I tried to watch some of the others games. One of my compatriots got involved in a life-or-death fight after only a few moves, and I had to stop watching it, not to get drawn in too much. My opponent played solid and sensible, and my early try to complicate matters looked more like a tantrum than a well thought out strategy, but the eventually he backed off from complications one time too many, and I managed tomein with komi. I will post the game later.

Carlsbad Structure in the World Championship 2023

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Knowing the ideas and themes of basic structures, like the Carlsbad (the Hedgehog/Maroczy, the Stonewall, Isolated and Hanging pawn structures, etc.), makes it much easier to make the right decision in a sharp situation. I was a bit puzzled about some decisions during the 12:th game of the last World Ch. Match, between Ding Liren and Nepomniachtchi.

The last part of the game have probably been more seriously commented elsewhere. I wanted to focus on the Carlsbad part.

2:nd place in the Swedish Championship

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It took me half the tournament to come to my senses, but when I finally did, I played decently, and I also had a bit of luck. In the final round I misplayed a position that was slightly favorable for me, and then – in mutual time trouble – my opponent and I both missed an important detail on move 29 that could have decided the game in his favour:

With this win I ended up on second place after Vitalii Sivuk, who played significantly better than the rest of us.

Beautiful move.

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If I write that I was very unhappy with the start of the Swedish Championship, one might automatically presume that it was due to my loss in the third round, against Thomas Ernst, but no. I did not play good chess in that game, but the worst was during those three first rounds, when I had no ideas, and only saw dead draws everywhere. It happens sometimes, but this time around it was worse than I can remember it ever being before. But, now I am out of it. Perhaps the turning point, idea-wise, was in the post mortem (after game analysis), on move 15, against Erik Blomqvist:

Two rounds to go.