Sjakkfejden
The match between Mid-Norway (Trøndelag) and Mid-Sweden (Jämtland) has become a yearly tradition, and the 2008 edition was played this weekend. I participated for the first time for the Norwegian team, and was able to draw my game against a higher-rated opponent. But unfortunately the Swedish team beat us 13-7. This came as no surprise though, as the home team usually has an advantage. It is hard to convince the best players of the club to travel all the way to Østersund in Sweden to play a game of chess.
On sunday, a rapid chess tournament was played, with 15 minutes per player per game. With 32 players, there were quite a few strong players in the field, and I knew that getting a decent result would be a tough job. However, I got off to an amazing start, scoring 5 points on the 5 first rounds! This included wins against strong players such as Lennart Burman, Terje Lund and Ulf Persson. But my winning streak came to an abrupt halt when I faced Kjell Arne Lilleløkken. In the last round I got paired against Christer Mäki, the same player I met in the match the day before. Christer slowly outplayed me. Maybe I struggled to shake off the loss against Kjell? But when everything looked completely lost and resignable, my opponent made a terrible move, capturing his own pawn with my pawn! This is of course not a valid move, and because we were playing with blitz rules, it lost him the game. Christer was very disappointed, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how unfair the result was. However, this was quickly forgotten when I was handed the 1st prize trophy! ![]()



