Sigeman: Caruana beats Giri in clash of the young stars

The Limhamn Chess Club is staging the 20-year jubilee of the annual Sigeman Chess Tournament. It is taking place in the classical Hipp Theater in central Malmo, Sweden, and is an eight-player round robin. The rate of play is 40 moves/2hours + 20 moves/1 hour + 30 minutes for the rest of the game. The games start at 14:00h CEST, except the final round, which begins at 12:00 noon.

There are two young top players at the start: 19-year-old Italian-American grandmaster Fabiano Caruana and the tournament winner of 2010, 17-year-old Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri. The two youngsters face former world championship challenger Peter Leko from Hungary, one of China's best chess players, 22-year-old grandmaster Chao Li, and four of Sweden's best chess players.

This year's home team consists of Jonny Hector from hosting club Limhamns SK, who is participating in the Sigeman Chess Tournament for the sixteenth time, two newly promoted grandmasters, Nils Grandelius and Hans Tikkanen, both from neighboring town Lund, and finally one of Sweden's most successful chess players during the last five years, 30-year-old grandmaster Emanuel Berg.

The big favorites are Caruana and Leko, the former based on a number of very good recent results, and the latter based on 20 years among the best players in the world and a number of big tournament wins. Giri and Chao should be considered dangerous outsiders.

The first round was played at the Hipp Theatre on Wednesday, the 9th of May

In the first round there were two decided games. The first was the clash between the two young stars which was decided in favour of the older (by two years) and higher rated (by 77 points) player.

In the second it was the older and lower ranked (by six points) player who took the point – with the black pieces.

Peter Leko, former World Championship challenger, who has not been playing much at all lately, had a rough-and-tumble against new grandmaster Nils Grandelius – 167 points his inferiour on the rating scale, but the player with the longest dredlocks in chess.

Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano was born in Florida, but early in his life he moved to New York, where he soon showed remarkable talent. When he was 11, his family moved to Europe, where they first lived in Madrid, but later on they moved on to Italy. Since he was both a US and an Italian citizen, he could chose which country he wanted to represent, and in 2005 he chose Italy. Since then, he has won the Italian championship four times.

His international breakthrough came at Wijk aan Zee, where he during the years 2008 and 2009 became the first to win Group C and Group B two years in sequence. In 2009, he also made it into the fourth round of the World Cup, where he got knocked out by Vugar Gashimov in the rapid chess tiebreak. Last year he also won the very strong AAI tournament in New Dehli, with 7 points in 10 rounds. He is currently the world's highest rated junior player and rated among the ten best chess players in the world.

Caruana makes his first start in the Sigeman Chess Tournament. With the highest rating and a number of impressive results he is, of course, one of the big favorites.

Jonny Hector

Local grandmaster Jonny Hector participates in the Sigeman Chess Tournament for the sixteenth time. This by far makes him the most frequent guest, but this should come as no surprise, since he was born and raised in Malmo and represents the hosting club, Limhamns SK. Yet another reason for Jonny to be invited year after year is that he is an ambitious and creative player who always plays to win. Hector lives with his family in Helsingor in Denmark, not very far from Malmo.

A couple of years ago he became a father and decided to play less. The last few years he has played less but has had very good results, and he has probably never played better. In 2010 Jonny for the first time had a rating over 2600, and at his present 2562 he is still close to this level. Hopefully the many games he has played in the Sigeman Chess Tournament have contributed to this, since playing games against very tough opponents give you an opportuinty to really test your skills and your opening repertoire.

In 2010, Jonny came to close to winning the Swedish Championship, but Emanuel Berg managed to squeeze past, after Jonny leading almost all the way. In last year's Swedish Championship, the same thing happened, but this time it was Hans Tikkanen who passed in the last round. Annoying to say the least... However, Jonny has been playing well and late in 2011, he won the traditional Malmö Open tournament.

Photos by Calle Erlandsson

Schedule and results

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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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