Hasselbacken Open ends in glory

Photos by Lars AO Hedlund

The elegant playing hall thanks to the main sponsor, the Hasselbacken hotel

The tale of the tournament was in many ways one of last-round glory. The first and foremost was that of the top-seed Dmitry Andreikin, former World Cup finalist and Candidate, who was also the only 2700 player in the field. It is true that several others were former colleagues, such as Zoltan Almasi, Ilia Smirin, and of course Alexei Shirov, but at the moment he stood alone above the rest. This also has the unfortunate result of painting a big fat target on his back, challenging all other players to make a name for themselves at his expense, but he showed he was up to the task.

Nothing was less clear however, and it bears pointing out that after eight rounds, ten players stood tied with 6.5/8. With so many contenders, even a victory would still require a dose of luck to take first , but in the end, only two players pulled that off: Andreikin and Adhiban.

The Russian faced a tough challenge, playing black against Borki Predojovic, rated 2654 FIDE, but he took control of his fate and finished in beauty.

Predojovic - Andreikin

Black to play and win

The deserved winner, Dmitry Andreikin, with his daughter

Indian GM Baskaran Adhiban also gave it his all, and played a bold game against Victor Mikhalevski, sacrificing the exchange in the middlegame to accelerate his attack.

Baskaran Adhiban - Victor Mikhalevksi

Baskaran Adhiban played aggressive, enterprising chess and reaped the
rewards, taking second on tiebreak, tied with Andreikin on points

In the group of players with 7.0/9, the leader and third place was Ilia Smirin

Sebastien Mazé was going strong until round seven when he lost to...

... compatriot Vladislav Tkachiev. Both finished with 7.0/9.

GM Axel Bachmann was the best player from South America. The
Paraguayan scored 7.0/9 and finished 12th.

IM Liang Awonder had a rough start with 2.0/4, but managed to recover
and ended with 7.0/9 with five straight wins, though he still lost a bit of Elo.

Samuel Sevian finished on 6.5/9, but since he played no fewer than six
GMs rated over 2620 in the process with no losses, he added 14 Elo to
his rating and broke 2600 himself.

Eric Thorn was the unsung hero of the event, and the local member
of the Stockholm Chess Club, rated only 2204, scored a full-fledged
IM norm to the delight of his club members.

11-year-old FM Nihal Sarin from India made waves of his own after finishing
with a 2401 performance and powerful win over GM Rozentalis. Below is his
recorded analysis in the post-game conference. Be sure to check it out!

Above is the video of the round nine commentary. Start it and it will jump directly to the analysis
by 11-year old FM Nihal Sarin, who shows his win over GM Rozentalis (starts at 5:01:15)

GM Jorden van Foreest also finished with 7.0/9, ending in 9th place

Father and son playing in the analysis area

Checking for blunders with the computer

"Oops!"

Following the action

IM Dan Cramling, brother of the famous Pia Cramling

Dmitry Andreikin with his family

Many thanks to photographer Lars Hedlund, author of all the portraits seen here, for his diligence and effort to label all his images and allow media to put a name to the many faces.

Solution to position: Black played the not-so-obvious 1...Re2!! and White resigned. If 2.Rxe2 f3+ 3.Kg3 fxe2 the pawn will queen, and if 2.Rd1 for example, then 2...e3 and the knight on f2 is lost. Black could play 1...e3 immediately but this allows White to give his knight for two pawns with 2.Nxe3 fxe3 3.Rxe3+ and still prolong the struggle.

Final standings

Annotation:
Tie Break1: Buchholz Tie-Breaks
Tie Break2: Most black

Click for complete standings

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.