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Another fun game in the Swedish league

Another fun game in the Swedish league

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IM RitvarsReimanis
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Hi there,

It has been 2 weeks since my last post, so it was time to have another chess encounter to keep my journey on the right track. This time the occasion was to help my Malmo chess club in the match against Lund.

For all the games I can remember, I have almost always played with Black pieces for Malmo, which has been tough, but as long as it serves the team's strategy I don't mind. This round though things were different - I got White pieces, and was excited to play some fighting chess! In Swedish league a fun thing is that all the way until 15 minutes before the game, you don't really know who you are going to play against, because the teams submit their final player lineup for the match only 15 minutes prior the match start, so that makes it rather difficult to prepare for the game.

During the week I checked the games of some of the players from Lund club, and looked over some possible theoretical lines, so I was ready.  

Train ride above the sea :-) 

As you already know from my previous posts I live in Copenhagen (Denmark), so it takes some time for me to get to any place in Sweden, though this weekend the match was in Malmo, which is just across the bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Nevertheless, I had quite a bumpy morning - I managed to miss a train by 1-2 minutes, so had to wait another 20 minutes for the next one, which resulted in me being late for the game for almost 15 minutes. Fun thing happened as I arrived at the playing hall - one of my teammates said that I have to make a move in less than 1 minute as otherwise I lose the game, as I would be more than 15 minutes late. So I rushed to the table, shook my opponents hand and made a move. Later I found out that in fact that the rule is that one loses a game by being late more than 30 minutes and not 15.

On the way to the playing hall randomly saw this Star Wars dude..

All the non-chess related hiccups aside and down to the real business. To my surprise, I was facing a player whose games I hadn't checked before the game, so that was a bummer. Here goes the game: 

All in all it was a tough game, which lasted almost 5 hours. I had my chance to win, and I missed it. The only good thing was that after the game, when analyzing the game also with an engine, I could see that my calculations for the most part was precise. My opponent played really well, while in some of the positions finding the only moves.
In the end match ended in a draw 4-4, which I guess was a fair result as the average team rating was nearly the same for both teams.
Little walk after the game to clear my head..
So far this season has been really slow and I'm not happy with my results so far. I will work hard on improving and hopefully that will show in the games next year, which is already very soon!
I am also super-excited about participating in the chess.com organized Pro league, where I will be a part of Riga Magicians Team. I think there are going to be many strong teams playing, as even Magnus Carlsen himself is going to play! Hopefully, our team plays well and we get to face the World Champion.
This would be it for now  The last thing I would like to say is a big thank you to all the people who have given me feedback on how to improve my blog and for the support with the kind words, it really means a lot! 
See you at the tables!
Cheers,
Ritvars