As I mentioned before, the time in the open has been severely reduced in the last few years. It is speculated that it has to do with that they want people to have time to play both main and rapid. This might be the case, but it is still not a good decision. The games are even shorter than a game in an international chess open, and it is basically impossible to go to the toilets during the games. I wish they will take a decision in the future that reverse this… situation.

In round four I lost deservedly. My opponent knew what he was doing in the opening stages, but I did not. I tried to emulate the style of Fredrik Blomback (playing seemlingly slow, poking at every weak shape, and then attack ferociously). My attemt at playing ”seemlingly slow”, turned out to be just slow. After spending the first part of the game on my back foot, I finally pressed the chaos button around move 125, and the game became very messy. He was always in the lead, but it was tense and quite possible (in a low-odds sense) that I would turn it around:

In round five I finally managed to win a game with White. At the end I got my eyes on a big group, and finally managed to kill it. Very exciting game:

Sadly, for me, neither Fredrik Blomback, nor Ben 0 made it to the semifinals in the Championship.

Today the weekend tournament starts, with 45 minutes base time. It is a bit fast for my liking, but I am playing anyway. Three games today, and two tomorrow. Perhaps there is one person reading this, or – optimistically – two, and that you will wish me good luck. I will need some.

In round three I played against a young woman representing China. The game was going my way for most of the time, but neither of us had a great lead until things fell apart for her, just at the end.

Today I played better, but blundered in a hugely advantageous position.

They have changed the time settings for the main tournament compared to earlier years, and it will probably make me struggle a bit. I am not fast, and there is a stage in the games, when the opening stages have passed, when I find that I do not know wjat to do. A lot of time helps a lot then, but today I had only twenty minutes left of my ”main” time when that stage was reached.

The games started out well for me, and eventually we ended up with a fight on my right side. At this stage I spent almost twenty minutes trying to find the best sequence, and while reading some pretty deep lines, I was unable to find a really good one.

After the game Fredrik Blomback – Sweden’s star player who is in a realm of his own – invited me to show my game. I showed this position and said that I expected that a + 5 dan would immediately know what to do in this position, and ideed; Fredrik showed me the right sequence:

The marked points are miai, and White will at least be able to get a good squeeze on the outside. The game would be balanced, but very slightly in my favour.

Some moves later my sympathetic opponent played 77, and I fell back into a bad mind-set, ”protecting” the corner instead of either leaning on the stone, or just jumping out in the center, making Black’s three floating stones weaker. Still the game was ok for me.

The critical moment came here:

I was short on time here, and did not have the time to read out the important stuff. Black’s marked stones in the center are close to dead if I get to play the marked points are at the left, but I was worried about ”A”, and played a bad forcing move at the top. Still, after this bad exchange I was ahead by almost 20 points. Any sensible move should win the game. Instead I mishandled Black’s peep at ”A” in the worst possible manner and lost all my stones at the top. (I missed a tricky move that my opponent had not missed…)

I was not too happy with myself after the game. I do not mind losing games that are hard fought and balanced, but yet another loss of a game where I had such a huge lead made me feel stupid.

Going through the game afterwards, in the company of players like Fredrik Blomback, and Ben-0, made my mood change once again, from rather annoyed at myself, to feeling absolutely priviledged. ”I learnt a lot” sometimes feels like an excuse, but today I make it my finishing words without bending the truth.

I managed to win my first game, although not exactly convincingly:

One is allowed to bring a phone, and at one stage during the game I decided to get up, and I felt it was wrong to bring the phone with me, so i placed it next to the board and walked away. Later on one of the arbiters came by and stopped our clock, and told me not to place the phone on the table. It should stay in the pocket. I will of course comply, but it is a bit confusing when my two fav games come with two completely different rule-sets in this area.