Doeberl Half-time: A quick update

A very quick update in the break in between rounds 5 and 6 at this year’s Doeberl Cup.

After taking a half point bye in round one and grinding out a win in the last game of round two against the extremely talented Justin Tan, I managed to finally get a bit of rhythm to my play.  Unfortunately, I just went down against the top seed, Grandmaster Sune Berg Hansen from Denmark.

Sune used some deep preparation in the Scotch opening from Denmark’s trainer at the recent Olympiad, German grandmaster and Thai Open winner, Jan Gustafsson.  I immediately sunk into a half hour think after getting served the novelty – not the sort of situation you want to be facing on board one in a morning round!  The game got a bit crazy and I did have the odd swindling chance that would have perhaps succeeded against a weaker player – but not today.

A shower, a quick snack and, yes, a blog post, and I’m ready to head back for round six.  The board one clash between Hansen and Bojkov promises to be a beauty, so if you’re free for the next few hours, make sure you load up the live games from the top boards on your screen.

One more thing:  the Saturday evening round at the Hellenic Club usually suffers from residual noise from the crazy live band and dance floor below the playing hall, so it should be an interesting night.  Perhaps Ivoj Nob might even make an appearance.