Fressinet wins 22nd Sigeman Tournament

by Frederic Friedel
5/20/2014 – French GM Laurent Fressinet remained without defeat and won two of his five games to take first place in this round robin event. Meanwhile 27-year-old IM Axel Smith, who similarly had two wins and no losses, spoilt his chances with an unfortunate king move in his final game. But Axel finshed second with 3.0/5 points and a gain of 14 rating points. Final report from Malmö.

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The 22nd annual Sigeman Chess Tournament took place in the classical Hipp Theater in central Malmo. This year's event was a round robin with six participants, who were an interesting mix of established players and rising stars, and of familiar faces and new ones. The visiting team consisted of former world championship candidate Jan Timman, French grandmaster Laurient Fressinet and Norwegian grandmaster Jon Ludvig Hammer. The home team consists of Nils Grandelius, who has become Sweden's strongest and most active chess player, new grandmaster Erik Blomqvist and international master Axel Smith. The time control was 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move.

IGM JLH vs IM AS was a Slav that ended after 42 moves in a relatively uneventful draw

Nils Grandelius had scored 0.5/3 so far, but won his first game in round four

Timman played most of the game a pawn down but defended successfully to a 93-move draw

Not exactly packed – the playing venue in the Hipp Theater

The main sponsor Johan Sigeman with IM Björn Ahlander in the commentary room

Swedish GM Tiger Hillarp Persson watching the action

The final decisive game, in which Axel Smith made one false king move

Allan Beardsworth sent us his comments on this game, as published on his chess blog, where he writes:

I hadn't been following the current Siegman tournament until I saw this article on ChessBase that Axel Smith was leading it. Axel is an IM who wrote the excellent Pump Up Your Rating, published by Quality Chess – one of those rare, really well written instructional books where you feel the author really wants to help his readers improve their chess. So, delighted for Axel, I logged onto Playchess to see how he had fared today, to see that he went down in flames against Nils Grandelius, one of the players he profiled in his book.

[Event "22nd Sigeman & Co 2014"] [Site "Malmo SWE"] [Date "2014.05.19"] [Round "5.3"] [White "Smith, Axel"] [Black "Grandelius, Nils"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "D58"] [WhiteElo "2478"] [BlackElo "2587"] [Annotator "Beardsworth,Allan"] [PlyCount "92"] [EventDate "2014.05.15"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bh4 O-O 7. e3 b6 8. Be2 Nbd7 9. cxd5 exd5 10. O-O Bb7 11. Rc1 Re8 12. Qa4 a6 13. Rfd1 Bd6 14. Ne1 Qb8 15. Bg3 Bxg3 16. hxg3 Nf8 17. Nd3 Ne6 18. b4 Qd8 19. Qb3 Qd6 20. a4 Rad8 21. Qb2 Ng5 22. Nf4 Re7 23. Nb1 Nge4 24. Nd2 Bc8 25. Nxe4 dxe4 26. b5 axb5 27. axb5 Bb7 28. Bc4 Kf8 29. Ra1 g5 30. Ne2 h5 31. Ra7 Bd5 32. Rc1 Rdd7 33. Bxd5 Qxd5 34. Rc6 Kg7 35. Nc3 Qf5 36. Qe2 h4 37. gxh4 gxh4 38. Kf1 Qg5 39. Qc4 Ng4 40. Ke2 $2 ({After} 40. Ke1 Qf5 {White can defend with} 41. Qf1 ({or} 41. Qe2)) 40... Qf5 {The king blocks the white queen from moving to f1.} 41. Nd1 (41. -- Qxf2+ 42. Kd1 Nxe3+ 43. Kc1 Qc2# {was threatened.}) 41... Ne5 $1 {[%cal Re5c4, Re5c6] Winning the exchange, with White's best option being to retreat the queen.} 42. dxe5 h3 $3 {A beautiful device, threatening either to promote the pawn, or instead decisively weakening the h5-d1 diagonal and in particular giving Black control of f3.} {White tried to randomise with} 43. e6 {and is met with the continuation of beauty with the move} hxg2 $3 44. exd7 Rxd7 $1 { and White's king is in a mating net.} 45. Qc3+ f6 46. Rxf6 Qxb5+ {Very cool, beautiful play by Grandelius.} 0-1

Final standings (after five rounds of play)


Links

The games were broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the ChessBase News page. Studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. In 1986 he co-founded ChessBase.

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