Ronneby round-up
Hans Tikkanen led the tournament in Ronneby from the third round on, when he beat top seed Nils Grandelius. But it was far from a sure bet to the very end.
Tiger Hillarp Persson may have guessed that a draw in the final round against Grandelius would not be enough to win the title. However, his courageous and actually promising looking winning attempt failed, with the tournament on the line.

A win in the last round got Grandelius back to a second place tie | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund
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1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 dxc4 4.Qa4+ Bd7 5.Qxc4 c5 6.Bg2 Bc6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Nc3 Nbd7 9.a4 Be7 10.d3 0-0 11.Qb3 Rc8 12.a5 Nd5 13.Nd2 Nb8 14.Nxd5 exd5 15.e4 dxe4 16.dxe4 b5 17.axb6 axb6 18.Nc4 b5 19.Ne3 c4 20.Qc2 Nd7 21.Rd1 Ra8 22.Rxa8 Qxa8 23.Nf5 Re8 24.b3 Bf8 25.bxc4 b4 26.Bb2 26.Qe2 26.Re1 26...Ba4! 27.Qd2 Bxd1! 28.Qxd1 28.Qxd7 Qd8! 28...Ne5! 29.f4 29.Nd6 Re6! 29...Rd8 30.Qe2 Qa7+ 31.Kh1 Nd3! 32.h4 32.Nh6+ Kh8! 32...Nxb2 33.Qxb2 g6 34.Qf6 Rd1+ 35.Kh2 gxf5 36.Qxf5 Qd7 37.Qg5+ Bg7 38.e5 h6 0–1 - Start an analysis engine:
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Hillarp Persson,T | 2534 | Grandelius,N | 2668 | 0–1 | 2018 | A13 | SWE-ch 2018 | 9 |
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On this DVD Grandmaster Daniel King offers you a repertoire for Black against the Catalan, based around maintaining the rock of a pawn on d5. Keeping central control ultimately gives Black good chances to launch an attack against the enemy king.
As it turned out, Hans Tikkanen would have needed only a draw to become Swedish national champion for the fifth time. But his opponent also made a mistake that allowed Tikkanen to score the full point.

One more hurdle for Hans | Photo: Lars OA Hedlund
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1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Nc5 b6 6.Nb3 e6 7.Nf3 Bd6 8.g3 h6 9.Bg2 Ne7 10.0-0 Nd7 11.Re1 Rc8 12.Nbd2 0-0 13.Nc4 Bb8 14.b3 c5 15.a4 Nc6 16.Ba3 Qf6 17.Ne3 Bh7 18.Qe2 Rfd8 19.d5 Nd4 20.Nxd4 cxd4 21.Bb2 e5 22.Nc4 Nc5 23.Rad1 Qf5 24.Nxe5 24.Rd2 d3 25.cxd3 Nxd3 26.Red1= 24.d6 Qxc2 25.Qxe5 Nxb3 26.Rxd4! 24...Bxe5 25.Qxe5 Qxe5 26.Rxe5 Bxc2 27.Rxd4 Nd3! 27...Nxb3= 28.Re2 Nxb2 29.Rdd2 Bf5! 30.Be4 30.Rxb2 Rc1+ 31.Bf1 Bh3 30...Bh3 31.f4 31.Re1 Re8!-+ 31...Rc1+ 32.Kf2 Nd1+ 33.Kf3 Nc3 34.Rf2 0–1 - Start an analysis engine:
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Von Bahr,O | 2434 | Tikkanen,H | 2495 | 0–1 | 2018 | B18 | SWE-ch 2018 | 9 |
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The Caro-Kann Powerbook 2018 is based on over 719 000 games, of which more than 690 000 come from the engine room on playchess.com.
Tikkanen said this in an interview with Jesper Hall right after the last round:
”My victory against Nils Grandelius was of course the key moment. That win in 3rd round established Hans Tikkanen’s super start in Swedish championships. But in the middle of the tournament one round was played much earlier. And that really disturbed me. Much more than I could have thought. I lost my rhythm. And it did not get better when Ronneby hade a noisy festival the whole night after...”
Tikkanen still managed to hold his lead right to the finish. His next big test will come at the Olympiad in Batumi.
”I am really glad that I managed to get one place in the team. I think Sweden will make a good result in the open section. We all played good chess here in Ronneby”, said the new champion.
Results of Round 9
Final standings
All games
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- Start an analysis engine:
- Try maximizing the board:
- Use the four cursor keys to replay the game. Make moves to analyse yourself.
- Press Ctrl-B to rotate the board.
- Drag the split bars between window panes.
- Download&Clip PGN/GIF/FEN/QR Codes. Share the game.
- Games viewed here will automatically be stored in your cloud clipboard (if you are logged in). Use the cloud clipboard also in ChessBase.
- Create an account to access the games cloud.
Translation from German: Macauley Peterson
Ingemar Falk contributed reporting from Ronneby
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