Sigeman & Gausdal

Two Scandinavian tournaments have started today. First there is the Sigeman & Co Tournament, which has been organised since 1993. Our compatriot Jan Timman has been quite succesful in Malm?ɬ? (2nd in 2000, shared 1st in 2001 and 2005 and clear 1st last year) and naturally plays again this year, together with Erwin l'Ami, Johnny Hector, Tiger Hillarp-Persson, Emanuel Berg, Pontus Carlsson, Ivan Cheparinov, Parimarjan Negi, Vasilios Kotronias and Emil Hermansson. A field that will surely serve us some great games. And then there's the Gausdal Classics, also starting today, with Magnus Carlsen, Michael Krasenkov, Alexei Dreev, Eduardas Rozentalis, Kjetil Lie, Kaido Kualots, Gawain Jones, Lajos Portisch (!), Irina Krush en Eric Moskow.

The Sigeman & Co Tournament is being held for the fifteenth time and for the tenth time at the classical Hipp Theater in central Malm?ɬ?.


Google Map: Malm?ɬ?

Sigeman's live games here. Play starts daily at 14.00 CET, no rest days.

The only two players who went right from Dresden to Malm?ɬ? are Ivan Cheparinov (shared first, winning ten rating points) and Tiger Hillarp-Persson (lost three points). Jan Timman has dropped out of the Dutch top ten with the April FIDE rating list and will surely do his best to fight himself back in (though not playing at all will also suffice since the no. 10 Jan Smeets dropped no less than 33 points in Dresden). The always-entertaing Emanuel Berg (e.g. no draws at Aeroflot) wrote some reports last year and hopefully he will have some time again this year. Otherwise perhaps Erwin l'Ami. IM Pontus Carlsson is virtually a GM and Vassilios Kotronias lives Skara, Sweden. More info about the players can be added in the comments ;-)

The first round did deliver some good fighting chess:

GM Tiger- Hillarp Persson - IM Pontus Carlsson  1 - 0 
GM Ivan Cheparinov        - GM Emanuel Berg     1 - 0 
IM Emil Hermansson        - GM Jan Timman       0 - 1 
GM Jonny Hector           - GM Parimarjan Negi
GM Vassilios Kotronias    - GM Erwin l'Ami       1 - 0

At the moment of writing Hector and Negi are still playing an extremely exciting ending.

Gausdal is a lot stronger than last year. It's held at the Thon Hotel Gausdal in the south-Norwegian town with the same name.




Google Map: Gausdal

Gausdal's live games here. The first round is now going on - it started at 19.00 CET. Rounds 2-8 will be played at 14.00 hrs and round 9 at 09.00 hrs.

Of this tournament Alexei Dreev played in Dresden (and quite badly, he lost ten rating points), as well as Gawain Jones (kept his rating). Lajos Portisch came from H?ɬ©v?ɬ?z, Hungary, where he played his rapid match against Spassky this weekend as a warm-up. Eric Moskow (2260) also played in the grandmaster group last year. He's a successful south Florida surgeon who devotes much of his free time to traveling to international tournaments. I believe he's trying to become an IM and is paying to appear in some strong tournaments but correct me if I'm wrong.

The tournament also offers GM lectures. If you happen to be nearby Gausdal next Saturday, do check out the Thon Hotel, because then Lajos himself is teaching.