First round mega recap - Reykjavik Puffins vs Hamburg Swashbucklers - "The puffins the puffins"

The Puffins were buzzing with excitement for the 1st ever matchup in the PRO Chess league. This league is the best thing to happen to chess in a long time and we can't wait for the season to unfold. 

The Puffins, the puffins, the puffins

For the Puffins inaugural match we got paired up against a young and talented team from Germany, the Hamburg Swashbucklers. Filled with high rated young and talented players along with veteran IM Souleidis it was clear by pundits that the Puffins would be underdogs in this matchup being outrated on every board and therefore naturally on average rating. 10-6 for Hamburg was the general consensus although we did have one expert not willing to bet against the Puffins :-)

Hamburg Swashbucklers
Niclas Huscenbeth was missing from the Hamburg team but on the other hand the Puffins didn't have any of their three rostered GM's available for this matchup.

1st round:

The 1st round matches all the boards up in correct order so the best players on each team play against eah other.

The first result and the first ever win by the Puffins was brought home by the captain, FM Ingvar Johannesson aka Zibbit. After a nervous start his opponent made a game losing blunder and a quick confidence boost was received by the Puffins

Jon Viktor played solidly with the white pieces and he was the 2nd to finish with a draw. Jon Viktor won a pawn but black had the initiative and Jon was unable to convert. 

Making this much rosier for the Puffins was co-captain and IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson (Hunninn) bringing home the bacon with a nice win in his pet Cozio defence. Bjorn sacked a pawn and found an interesting Ra8-a6-h6 maneuver to whip up an attack. In the endgame Bjorn found some tricks.

Here is his reaction after the killer blow ...Bc6+ and Rg2xe2 (Bjorn wants it to be noted that this video was recorded behind his back and he isnt generally this obnoxious. „I was just trying to make thing entertaining for my team-mates,“ said Bjorn with remorse. I will publish the video anyway!)

The last game of the round to finish was Bragi Thorfinnsson's game. After middlegame complications where Bragi was up a piece we ended up in a promising rook endgame for Bragi with the white pieces. Down on the clock he failed to find two very nice and constructive wins.

2nd round:

The matchups for the 2nd round were:

IM Jon Viktor Gunnarsson 2457  vs  IM Jonas Lampert 2500

IM Bragi Thorfinnsson 2430         vs  GM Rasmus Svane 2552

IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson 2398         vs  IM Georgios Souleidis 2407

FM Ingvar Johannesson 2367       vs IM Dmitry Kollars 2491

After a great 1st round, the Puffins definately had the eye of the tiger!

Bragi lost against the strong Rasmus Svane after being in trouble early on. White played simple and solid and here the pawns are simply too weak on the black side.

Jon Viktor was also in trouble early in his Benko and despite fighting couldn't recover and also lost. At this point it looked like Hamburg was mounting a massive comeback immediately and looked like disaster was striking for the puffins. Then Bjorn Thorfinnsson produced some magic to keep things close.

This left FM Ingvar Johannesson with the remaining game trying to press home after his opponent blundered again.

3rd round:

Mood at halfway point 4-4

Both teams made a substitution at the half way point. The Puffins entered FM Bjorn Ivar Karlsson for FM Ingvar Johannesson while Hamburg switched out IM Souleidis for IM Colte. Note that the substitutions are decided two days beforehand!

The pairings in the 3rd round were:

IM Jon Viktor Gunnarsson 2457   vs  IM Dmitry Kollars 2491

IM Bragi Thorfinnsson 2430          vs   IM Malte Colpe  2394

IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson 2398         vs  GM Rasmus Svane 2552
FM Bjorn Ivar Karlsson 2313        vs  IM Jonas Lampert 2500

After a slow start it was time for Bragi to totally redeem himself.

Bragi went oldschool whipping out some 1996 Youth Olympiad Four-pawn attack variation. Or the "MP notebooks" as we call it in Iceland. Bragi's motto was "Ein fkn regla, og það er að negla" which roughly translates to "all-in"

Jon Viktor made a draw but both Bjorn and Bjorn lost. This picture is much cuter than their performance in this round although to be fair Bjorn Ivar had a tough game were he was grinded but Thorfinnsson wants to forget about his as soon as possible.

So heading into the final round Hamburg was leading 6,5-5,5

4th round:

The pairings for the final round:

IM Jon Viktor Gunnarsson 2457   vs  IM Malte Colpe  2394

IM Bragi Thorfinnsson 2430          vs  IM Dmitry Kollars 2491 

IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson 2398         vs   IM Jonas Lampert 2500
FM Bjorn Ivar Karlsson 2313        vs   GM Rasmus Svane 2552

The last round was very very tense and hard to keep up with the action. It sooned dawned on us that Jon Viktor had to be winning. His opponent chose a line that probably is just lost for white.

This meant the score was tied but Bjorn Ivar soon lost after a tough defence. This sounded like trouble since Bragi had been struggling in his game. He however managed to defend and even almost turned it around.

This meant that Hamburg led 7-8 and we needed a win in the last game to tie the match. For a good while it looked very equalish and like white would have trouble winning. With events in other games, Bjorn however knew he had to win.

Here you can see the final game and the celebration after it by IM Hunninn

So a final result of 8-8 in a tense and exciting match. Here is how the team members performed:

The Puffins:

IM Jon Viktor Gunnarsson 2457   -  2,0 out of 4 

IM Bragi Thorfinnsson 2430  - 2,0 out of 4           

IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson 2398 - 2,5 out of 4
FM Ingvar Johannesson 2367  - 1,5 out of 2           
FM Bjorn Ivar Karlsson 2313  - 0 out of 2

Hamburg Swashbucklers:

GM Rasmus Svane 2552 - 3,5 out of 4

IM Jonas Lampert 2500 - 2,5 out of 4

IM Dmitry Kollars 2491  - 1,5 out of 4
IM Georgious Souleidis 2401  - 0,5 out of 2

IM Malte Colpe  2394 - 0 out of 2

Overall we had a great time and would like to thank the Hamburg Swashbucklers for the fight. We are already looking forward to our next match against your friends in Stockholm!

And now for the war cry:

The Puffins, The Puffins, The Puffins........

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