The Eksjö Tournament 1980

Eksjö Chess Club's 8th international tournament was a great success for Swedish chess, and the results show that the Swedish elite players are of a high international standard. This bodes well for the future, not least for the Chess Olympiad in Malta, where the Swedes can line up with good reason to feel confident.

After mature consideration, and with a large dose of fatalism, the Eksjö club's tournament committee decided that this year's event should be expanded with a grandmaster group alongside the customary IM group. The idea behind this bold step was naturally to try to broaden the absolute top of Swedish chess by giving our many international masters the opportunity to fight for the grandmaster title. Accordingly, early in the spring all our international masters resident in Sweden were invited to participate, and the response was indeed good — all accepted. Unfortunately Harry Schüssler withdrew at the last moment, which put an end to the minor chess-historical event of having all Swedish IMs in one tournament.

But by that stage the organizers had already managed to struggle their way through various difficulties. Grandmaster tournaments are certainly no bed of roses for organizers with limited financial resources. Grandmasters are about as difficult to catch as they are rare, and sometimes they are not a little expensive either. For this tournament three grandmasters were needed in order to make it qualifying, and of course it was precisely the number three that seemed to be settled at the planning stage. But, as in the story of the ten little boys, the group slowly but surely shrank during the week before the tournament started. Disaster was close! A frantic hunt around Europe began, with Håkan Åkvist and the hastily summoned reinforcement Axel Ornstein manning the telephones. All efforts were in vain until the day before the start, when the Hungarian grandmaster Levente Lengyel suddenly appeared and explained that the Hungarian Chess Federation had replied yes to the invitation by telegram a month earlier. That telegram could have spared the organizers many sleepless nights, but what can one do with a telegram office that understands neither Hungarian nor chess?

When the co-organizer, the Swedish Chess Federation, through its chairman Christer Wänéus, inaugurated the competition, calm had been restored and all earlier annoyances were forgotten once play and the battle for points had begun. Lars-Åke Schneider discovered that blood is thicker than water when, in the third round, he met his clubmate Rolf Lekander. Lekander, who had arrived in Eksjö the day before out of breath after promotion to the grandmaster group with only a few hours' notice, produced a magnificent game.

Grandmasters Ivanović of Yugoslavia and Kirov of Bulgaria left some time for sightseeing, but perhaps it was somewhat exaggerated tournament tactics on this occasion. Their shared 2nd–3rd place was hardly surprising. Both contributed to increasing the “need for movement” and demonstrated solid chess knowledge. The trio Kaiszauri, Ornstein and Karlsson followed up the Swedish success in team play by passing through the entire tournament and arriving at the prize places. The ever-hyperactive Wedberg is always interesting to watch and has some tough opening setups that may be worth closer study. The Bulgarian Minev proved to be a very difficult gentleman, and the Hungarian Lengyel became the tournament's draw king with no fewer than nine draws. The Pole Sznapik had a reputation as a dangerous tactician, and when he was moreover granted the same good opportunities in the Polish Championship shortly before the tournament, a strong placing was expected. Unfortunately, because his clock failed to indicate the correct time, he proved to be the weakest opponent that appeared before him that time.

Both Lekander and Gonsior of Czechoslovakia naturally had difficulty in the professional company. Both must nevertheless be given full credit for brave play and an occasional sensation.