Politiken Cup: The Wrap

I’ve made it to the little German town of Ladenburg for my post-tournament recovery. And what a tournament it was, too – definitely one of the best I’ve been to, and recommended for those looking for a fun European summer comp. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t keep up the pace after a blistering 6/7 start. I crashed at the end, losing two of my last three matches to ruin my chances of a big place, ending up 14^th. And as foreseen, it was the dangerous youngsters who were my undoing: the Italian grandmaster Sabino Brunello outlasted me in a marathon, see-sawing battle in round 8, while my extremely talented Dutch friend Robin van Kampen destroyed me in the 10^th and final round.

It’s always a downer to lose the final round of a big chess tournament, especially if one is within reach of the major prizes, but it’s even more the case when one doesn’t have the opportunity to play many events. Most of the other grandmasters were heading off to their next competition immediately, so any bitter taste from a last-round stumble is quickly washed away in the anticipation of future conquests. Not so for your author, however, who usually only gets the chance to play one or two major events a year. But, leaving my own disappointments aside, the fortnight of chess was really very enjoyable. The organization was faultless, and the exceptional venue and accommodations made it an extremely pleasurable stay for the chess tourists, plus-ones and professionals alike (I’m not sure which category I myself fall into…). I was even lucky enough to stay an extra day, meaning that GM Hrant Merkuryan (from Armenia) and I could sneak off on the ferry to Sweden for lunch. To an Australian’s ears, there can’t be anything stranger than that sort of sentence – “Yes, we just ducked off to Sweden for lunch” – but I guess that’s just another advantage of Europe in general.

I didn’t exactly leave the tournament empty handed, if I’m being honest. I picked up a couple of consolation packages in two of the side events that made up the festival. My first problem solving tournament was super fun, and definitely to be recommended to the loungechair chess addict. The tournament doubled as the Danish Problem Solving Championships, and we were required to solve 18 problems in two hours, with ties being sorted on the basis of who finished first. With this in mind, I was the first to hand in my sheets, no doubt some grandmasterly arrogance partially responsible for why I recklessly handed in ‘complete’ solutions after less than an hour. I got my just desserts, though, when it turned out I’d made a very silly mistake in one of the simpler puzzles, scoring 34/36 to finish in second. I have to say that it was a really fun event and it’s a shame (a) that they’re quite rare and (b) that I’d never bothered to go in one before.

I also played the epic blitz tournament in the evening after round 8. After a 5 hour loss to Sabino during the afternoon I wasn’t really in the mood for cognitive effort, but I’d been informed that the blitz was something of a social tradition and so decided to check it out. We were broken up into 8 groups of 10 players and played a full 9-game round robin, with the top two placegetters making it through to the qualification pool of 16. We were then broken into a further two groups of 8, played a full 7-game round robin, and the top two of each group made it into the final four for semi-final elimination. Lady Luck (Caissa?) seemed to be on my side this night. First, I scraped through to the qualification pool with a last round win in my group of 10. Then the Danish GM Alan ‘Good Bloke’ Rasmussen and I finished tied for 2^nd in our qualification group and so had to play a very entertaining Armageddon blitz match to decide who would go through to the semis. (Armageddon blitz was created for situations where a draw simply wouldn’t do. Black gets four minutes to White’s five, in addition to the first-move disadvantage, but a draw sees Black qualify.) I was lucky enough to scrape a draw when both sets of pieces finally disintegrated with seconds left for both of us.

So I made it into the semi finals along with three friends: Grandmasters Sebastien Maze and Romain Eduard from France, and Hrant. I was paired against Hrant, the former European blitz champion and probably the strongest blitz player on the night. However, after playing pretty appallingly in all the qualification rounds, I got very lucky in both our games and managed to win through to the final. I felt pretty guilty as Hrant is much, much stronger than me and I was also looking forward to seeing him battle the French genius Romain in the final, and this feeling was compounded when Romain destroyed me in the final two matches, but that’s blitz for you. The whole thing finished up at 1.30am after 19 games, but again, it was super good fun and the atmosphere in the final was really nice, with many of the local and foreign participants staying to the end to watch, beers in hand.

But of course, the main tournament was where the serious attention was at. After Sabino beat me in round 8, he then took down top seed and tournament leader Ivan Cheparinov in round 9. Cheppa had played the toughest field and led from the front since the first round, only to come undone right at the end – that’s open chess for you. This left Sabino and the Indian boy-wonder Negi tied for first going into the last round, and playing each other to boot. Sabino made a somewhat cheeky draw offer on move one (!), but Negi declined and won a fine game to win outright and by a full point on 9/10. Cheppa took second, with the French duo picking up the other major places to cap off a fantastic financial haul when one considers their blitz, team-blitz and nightly casino performances.

Overall it was a great event that really reignited my chess appetite. I had a great time and played some quite decent chess, at least for the most part. Both my winning and ‘unbeaten’ streaks came to an end during the tournament, but all I felt was envy when the GMs spoke of the tournaments they were heading off to after Denmark. Most of the top guys will be playing in the World Cup starting in Norway next week. Oceania will be represented by IM Igor Bjelobrk, who’s up against the Russian powerhouse Alex Grischuk. At leat I’m not totally uninvolved – I’ll be doing some commentating!

Back to the real world now for me, unfortunately. My thesis can’t wait any longer, despite how much I’ve enjoyed this short chess-viking sabbatical. Here follows the last pictorial hurrah.

PS Thanks to Ola for the correction from the last post, where I mistakenly referred to Finland as Scandinavian. Regardless, the lunchtime sortie to Sweden added another country to the scratch-map, so only Norway eludes me – at least until the Olympiad next year…