Grandelius Leads Tepe Sigeman & Co Tournament

The 2018 Tepe Sigeman & Co Tournament is underway in the Hipp Theater in in Malmö, Sweden. With two wins and a draw, GM Nils Grandelius leads the tournament with two rounds to go.

The 23rd edition of the Tepe Sigeman & Co Tournament has the same, short but straightforward format as last year. That event, won by Grandelius and Baadur Jobava, came after a two-year absence in the tournament calendar.

Organized by Limhamns chess club, the tournament continues to be supported by lawyer Johan Sigeman and main sponsor Tepe, a dental products manufacturer. ("We care about healthy smiles.") Its CEO Joel Eklund is rated 2196 while Sigeman has 2112; not bad at all for chess sponsors!

Obviously, the actual participants are a bit stronger than that. In order of Elo these are GMs Santosh Gujrathi Vidit (2707, India), Alexander Morozevich (2665, Russia), Nils Grandelius (2651, Sweden), Benjamin Gledura (2615, Hungary), Aryan Tari (2603, Norway) and IM Linus Johansson (2457, Sweden).

Image courtesy of the official website.

The tournament has seen almost without exception interesting games, of which only three ended decisively. Two of those were wins with the white pieces by Grandelius, who is half a point ahead of Tari, who logically scored the other win.

Grandelius started with a win against Gledura in an Alapin Sicilian, a game that went completely nuts at some point, or so it seemed. By then, Grandelius was already winning. Key in this game was his assessment of the white pawn on d6 which turned out to be strong, not weak.

Grandelius' other win was against Linus Johansson (in round three), and that was also the player who was beaten by Tari (in round two). Johansson is a 23-year-old International Master who happens to have the same name as a Swedish ice hockey player. Chess playing Linus has been on the receiving end of the body checks so far.

It's always exciting to have Alexander Morozevich in a tournament, the former world number two from Russia who sadly gets few invitations these days. Now 40 years old, "Moro" is the oldest participant in Malmö and scored three draws. But the most spectacular move so far was his:

In fact Morozevich's game of today against Tari is a must-see as well. A lovely draw.

Morozevich: "I stopped playing professional chess at the beginning of 2015, so as a chess player, I have no goals. As a chess master I still have goals and duties – to share my knowledge to raise my students, to contribute to the popularization of chess all over the world." | Photo: Peter Doggers/Chess.com.

2018 Tepe Sigeman & Co | Round 3 Standings

There will be two more rounds, starting Monday at 2 p.m. CET (8 a.m. Eastern, 5 a.m. Pacific) and Tuesday at noon CET (6 a.m. Eastern, 2 a.m. Pacific). 

By the way, the interviews with the players on the website (under the menu item Participants) are well worth reading as well. (That's where the quote from Morozevich was taken from.)

Games via TWIC.