Double Swedish Success in Eksjö

Grandmaster title for Lars Karlsson

Eksjö Chess Club's 10th international tournament, 18–28 August 1982, was an enormous success for Swedish chess. In Group A — the strongest tournament held in Sweden for 20 years — Lars Karlsson and Lars-Åke Schneider shared first place with a magnificent 8 points. Lars Karlsson thereby achieved the grandmaster title and became Sweden's fourth grandmaster of all time after Gideon Ståhlberg, Gösta Stoltz and Ulf Andersson.

For Lars-Åke Schneider, who is far ahead in the all-time table of the Eksjö tournaments, this was his first grandmaster norm.

Third was the Romanian grandmaster Mihai Suba — also third in the recently completed Interzonal Tournament in Las Palmas.

Then came another three Swedes: Axel Ornstein, Tom Wedberg and Harry Schüssler. Fantastic!

In Group B, won by the favourite Gilles Andruet of France, the Eksjö player Håkan Rothén best defended the Swedish colours; he shared second place and achieved an FM norm.

The quickest out of the starting blocks in the grandmaster tournament were the Swedes Karlsson and Schüssler, each with two wins. Karlsson defeated his Swedish IM colleagues Wedberg and Schneider, while Schüssler scalped the Czech Jiri Nun — son of IM Josef Nun, who played in last year's tournament — and Bulgarian grandmaster Nino Kirov. Already in the opening round the previous year's Swedish champion, Dan Cramling, suffered a painful defeat against one of the pre-tournament favourites, the Russian-born Dimitri Gurevich, who has been resident in the USA for two years.

Without going too far ahead of events it may be mentioned that the Hungarian grandmaster Levente Lengyel, in two Eksjö tournaments — 22 games — emerged victorious only once.

In round 3 Swedish champion Schneider began an almost unbelievable winning streak — six victories in succession — by defeating the big favourite Suba in a dramatic game.

Several ordinary rounds were played before the end of round 4's marathon, Nun–Schneider, could be entered into the records. The Swede was one piece down but could then enter an ending with minimal winning chances. After 104 moves the Serbian-born Swede had conducted the endgame excellently. Before that Schneider had, with an ingenious rook-sacrifice combination, swept away the Yugoslav Miso Cebalo.

Cramling's first win and Lengyel's first loss occurred in round 5. Mutual combinations and blunders followed one another, but despite Cramling's time trouble — his Achilles heel in this tournament — the time pressure was ultimately worth a Swedish half-point.

After the opening two wins, Karlsson and Schüssler each suffered three drawn games. In round 6 Karlsson won in time trouble against Cramling and improved his already considerable chances of a grandmaster norm. Schüssler continued with yet another draw and thus lost the fine lead he had given the impression of holding. Schneider won a slow queen-and-bishop ending against Wedberg — the Småland man's third adjourned game in a row.

When all adjourned games had been completed, the standings after six rounds were: Karlsson, Schneider 4½; Schüssler 4; Suba, Ornstein 3½; Lengyel 3; Cebalo, Gurevich 2½; Nun, Wedberg, Kirov, Cramling 2 points.

Round 7 was played in a strong following wind. Ornstein — still undefeated — won against Cebalo, Wedberg surprised Gurevich, Suba drew in a “blue draw” against Cramling, Schneider gave Schüssler his first defeat and Karlsson outplayed Lengyel.

Wedberg, who never gives up and always produces interesting games, inflicted Ornstein's only defeat in round 8. Karlsson reached a draw against Schüssler and Schneider took the sole lead by winning a miniature against the very strong Gurevich.

With a brilliant last-round finish, all games in round 9 ended in draws. Lars Karlsson, who needed two points from the final three rounds, had his path to Las Palmas — the Romanian Suba, who stood against him — and most expected a draw after gigantic fighting by the Swede in both final rounds against Nun and Cebalo.

In the final rounds Karlsson and Schneider recorded two short draws each, while Suba added two victories to his score. Since both had earlier demonstrated their strength in their losing games, it is appropriate to show their “proper path” as well.

There went Nun's second IM norm, while Suba secured a well-deserved third place!

Two Swedes at the top of the podium, Lars Karlsson as a new grandmaster and Lars-Åke Schneider with a first grandmaster norm! It could hardly have been a better ending to Eksjö Chess Club's 10th international tournament.

In the shadow of the Hitchcock-like grandmaster tournament, an IM-qualifying Group B was also played — just as in 1980. Here the French rising star Gilles Andruet was the big favourite, but the two Småland players Rolf Lekander and Håkan Rothén added extra spice through strong play at the beginning. The brilliant combination game against the Italian Antonio Martorelli brought the Eksjö player into sole lead with 3½ points after four rounds.

After this beautiful game Rothén rounded off with four draws and thereby secured his first FM norm. The same result was achieved by the unbeaten Norwegian Dag Orseth. These two shared second place with the fine-playing Theseus Liverios of Greece and the hard-working Gert Iskov of Denmark. Andruet lived up to his role as favourite after defeating Rothén in the final rounds in a clean final game.

A deserved victory for 24-year-old Gilles Andruet of France, and two FM norms: one for the Eksjö player Håkan Rothén and one for the Norwegian Dag Orseth. That was the verdict of an interesting B tournament.

Chief arbiter Arnold J. Eikrem of Norway had an easy task, while the bulletin editors Fredrik Andersson and Roger Karlsson had to work hard. Bernt Andersson handled media information, and the undersigned served as tournament director.

At the banquet our new grandmaster Lars Karlsson was the subject of enthusiastic tributes. Eksjö Chess Club, represented by the author, and the Swedish Chess Federation, represented by Arne Nyberg, paid tribute to him, while Nyberg also presented the federation's pennant to the organizing club. Eksjö Municipality's representative, Lennart Svensson, thanked the organizers and presented commemorative gifts to the participants. After the prize-giving ceremony Lars-Åke Schneider — a veteran with eight starts in Eksjö — thanked the organizers and presented the author with the chess club's specially designed T-shirt. The roughly 50 banquet participants enthusiastically enjoyed the good food and dancing went on well into the small hours.