On the third board. Lova Wåhlin (2d) played with the black stones, and I really like this game because of her calm approach to the lower side. Especially moves 47 and 49 were terribly cool:
Disappointment and relief
I have been planning to write something about every tournament that I have participated in since October, but at the end of every tournament I have been so disappointed with myself that I needed a break. Then, some days later, when it would have been reasonable to write something, I got into the I-will-win-the-next-tournament mood, and I did not feel that I had the time. But that is not completely true either. I have commented games, lots, for publishing, and perhaps the real reason for not publishing is that I did not find a frame for them that included myself and that wasn’t all negative.
This is all quite typical for a chess player, to have to change, always. And for me it has been more dramatic in the last few years, with new (stronger) engines that have made some of my go-to openings, if not unplayable, then unappetizing. I have spent more than 500 hours last year changing my opening repertoire, so that it is up to the demands of the time. In the process I forgot about having to play the games too, and virtually every other aspect of my game has deteriorated.
There was also the book that I started writing in 2007, which I have finally finished. (I will write more about it later) Perhaps, due to my slow writing tempo, it will not free up a lot of time for me not to write it anymore, but it is a relief not to think about it, all the time.
So, I have made a plan for playing better, but until it has kicked in the reader will have to suffer games of my current standard, although not today.
Since posting last time, I have played for Sweden in the European Team Championship B-league three more times and have won all my games, which is a nice change to losing all my matches before that. As a team we are doing well, and we have only lost to Germany so far.
The last match, against Finland, was streamed by Anton Silfver (2d) on his twitter channel “ClynchTV”, together with Anton Christenson (3d). In my comments, I refer to them as Anton & Anton in my comments to the games. (I believe the stream can still be found on Twitch)
I will comment on all the games of the match, starting with my own. Take note that I am significantly weaker than the two top boards, and I am trying to make sense of their strategies, although these might be hard for me to grasp.
My own game first. I was very, very lucky on move 152, when I made a ko-threat that was not sente:
A shaky game on my part. I was in horrible time trouble when I made the faulty ko-threat, and it is not very likely that I would have survived if my opponent had not gifted me a big part of his stones.
Next I will give my thoughts on the other three games in the match.
First win on National Go Team
I have played a few matches representing the Swedish National Team, at the online European Championship, but up to date I had never won a game. My last game, in the spring, against Germany, was perhaps my best so far, and I got very close winning against a significantly higher rated opponent. I was quite pleased with that game, but it can never feel quite good when your team loses. This year around Sweden plays in the B-league, and South Africa has also been given a spot there (an initiative that I fully support), and we were paired to play them in the first round.
I felt more confident that I have before:
I celebrated the win with rather ungraceful bouncing around the room. We also won on board 3 and 4, and went on to win the match.
Kvibergspelen, Gothenburg
The Swedish Grand Prix tour 2022-2023 involves 6 weekend tournaments that are played between September 2022 and May 2023. I participated in the first of the six, Kvibergspelen, during the last weekend of September. It is played in a sport arena in a suburb of Gothenburg, and this year it attracted more participants than ever. The playing are was crowded with people, and you could hear chess being spoken of wherever you went. As with all GP-tournaments, it started out with four rapid games on the Friday evening and through an absolute miracle i managed to score 4/4, even though I was last at some stage in every game I played. In the first round I played White against Hrund Hauksdottir, who have close to 800 elo-points less than me, but she was better off at various stages of the game, and I had to do my utmost to win the game. The three next games were no better, but on the Saturday I played all right and won two games against Jonny Hector and the promising Norwegian junior Elham Abdrlauf. So, with two rounds to go I had won all my games, and I felt I had a good chance to win the tournament. Then in round 7 I was paired with Simen Agdestein, and due to the result of our earlier encounters (not good for me), I had a defensive mindset and we agreed on a draw after less than 20 moves. So, 6,5/7, and only one game to go. In the last game I got the Black pieces against Kaan Kucuksari, a Swedish Junior who have won good games against me before, but in situations where I was trying hard to win myself, perhaps too hard. I knew he had gotten much better (and increased his ELO with more than a 100 points), but I did not know exactly how much better:
I was quite disappointed with the way the game went, of course, but my disappontment would be misguided if I used the narrative “I won my first six games and then I messed it up”. Rather, “I did not play as well as I expect of myself, and I was lucky to get soo far”, is a better verdict. Also, it is always nice to see someone you have coached turn into such a strong player. We will see more of Kaan, and the next time we meet over the board, I hope I will make him have to play his best.