I worked as usual on Friday, finishing at 17.00, then I headed to Kulturhuset. A place with theaters, a library, many other things and also a chess corner. The tournament was starting at 19.00 and I figured I needed some warming up. I was lucky and there were some quite good players there for me to play against. After a 2-2 score I was in a good mood and headed to the tournament.
It was played in a room behind a bar. I was a bit sceptic about mixing beer and chess but many did and I had never tried it. Who knows ... it might be good for calming the nerves. The participants were quite exciting. All but one were rated much or a bit over me and quite evenly rated. With twelve players there is a risk of there being someone much better than the rest. That wasn't the case this time. There was a clear favourite but it was far from guaranteed that he'd win. There were also three clear competitors for last place, me and two guys with ratings similar to mine, which is 1750. Then there was a large gap to the 9th rated. It reduced my chances for the rating price as everyone in the lower half of the starting field could get it, I had hoped that most on the lower half would be around my rating.
The other guys didn't have a good day. Usually the players rated lower manage to get a draw and/or a win occasionally but they lost all their games except for against each other when one won. The same can't be said for me. I met a middle rated guy and started off with a win. It was a bit underserved as I got outplayed but managed to win with an easy but surprising trick that he simply missed. He was definately the better player during the game however.
The next game was the other way around. I was dominating it more and more until I saw a chance to do a sacrifice to get a clear win. Sadly I had missed a move from him which made my sacrifice pointless. It was a bit annoying but not really bad played by me, that move was hard to see.
I'm not going to go through every game but I got a draw the next game against a bit personal rival of mine, almost winning it, which felt good. After four more rounds I ended up on three wins, two draws and two losses, which gave me fifth place. To make it even better I hadn't faced the two other players rated like me, only stronger players, all over 130 rating above mine. It probably doesn't tell you much if you don't know chess rating well but my chances should be slim. I'm not sure if it was due to the 2 beers or the coke I drank in those four hours but I did a very good tournament.
Now the weird part comes, feel free to skip it if it gets boring. The guy who had decided the prices hadn't done a very good job. The price money for first placce was 800 kr, second was 500 kr and third was 200 kr. The rating price was 400 kr and no prices could be shared. The problem is that the guy who came in third place was also in my rating group. Normally he'd get third price as that it supposed to be higher than the rating price unless you can get both, sometimes rules are like that. So what to do ...? Technically I should go home with the 400 kr and he with 200 kr but that just wouldn't be fair. To complicate things further another guy in my rating group got the same score as me but against weaker opponents, and the guy who came fourth had the same score as the guy who came third but against weaker opponents. This meant that 2/3 should go the one with the stronger opponents, me and the guy in third place.
I suggested that we changed the rating price to 300 kr and third place price to the same, that way it wouldn't have been better for the guy who got third place to lose his last game. It would also make it easy with the 2/3, me and mr third place get 200 kr each while the guys who came fourth and sixth get 100 kr each. The guy who came third and the guy who came fourth agreed that it was a quite good solution. The guy who had written the rules handed out 100 kr to the sixth and fourth place players like intended. - Then he gave me 150 kr and the guy who got third place 250 kr. That meant that I got a price but didn't even get the 200 kr I had paid to participate back. I actually sent a complaint before going to bed, we'll see how that turns out.
Saturday was a calm day, not much to say. Today was different. I went out with my mother to eat and we ended up walking around a lot of the middle of Stockholm before eating at an italian restaurant/ice cream place. An odd but not unpleasant mix. I ate a carbonara and then 3 bowels of ice cream, raspberry-white chocolate, marzipan and banana. I give the firt two 3/5 and the banana 4/5. Not the best ever but still good.
Then I continued to Kungsträdgården where they have an outdoor chess in the summer. I didn't think it would be out yet but turns out I was wrong. I ended up playing for a few hours there in the great weather. That will probably be enough chess for quite a while, at least playing. I will be following chess starting next Monday. Nils Grandelius, the best Swedish player since the nineties, managed to get a wildcard into a tournament with the very world top. He is rated nr 122 in the world and he will be facing nr 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13 and 14. I'm not sure what I expect but it will be very fun to see if he can get a few draws or even a win. In comparision I'm rated as number 130505 in the world and 1621 in Sweden.
I'm glad that the Swedish sports paper decided to write about it. The reporter also challenged Grandelius to a game where Grandelius had some pieces less from the start, including the queen, wore a blindfold and had to keep the moves in his head. The reporter lost fast of course. The article is in Swedish but I'll send a link anyway. Gnight folks
Link to the article
http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/article22602052.ab