From: DANERUD MARTIN TELIA COM> Date: 13 jun 2002 Subject: A success for the boys from Nosnasskolan Dear shogi friends, During the weekend, the first ever Trollhattan Open was played. Eighteen players participated, of which nine were from Goteborg, five from Trollhattan, one from Norrkoping, one Norwegian, one Japanese, and one Algerian. The Goteborg players dominated the tournament. Four of them, Anders Vidal, Mikael Jansson, Rikard Nordgren, and Tor Gammelgard, once upon a time all studied at Nosnasskolan at Stenungsund, some 30 km north of Goteborg. They are still very good friends. Anders and Mikael are cousins. They share an appartment in Goteborg together with Rikard. All of them have for a long time tried games from all over the world. Poker at the Internet seems to be the game of the day. For some years now, they have participated in almost all shogi tournaments in Sweden, and several times their scorings have been limited. They do not have any tournament background in chess, and we have always known that once their talent got some more shogi education, the good results were soon to come. Trollhattan Open was a success for the boys from Nosnasskolan. All of them scored at least 50 % and all of them were finally in the upper half of the result list. Anders performed his best tournament result ever with five points and a surprising second place. Mikael finally got a good result as fourth in the tournament, and he also won the rating price as the best player with rating from 15-kyu up to 6-kyu. Rikard and Tor were not completely satisfied with three points, but they performed quite well in the games, and they could have scored even better. The Japanese Taguchi-san displayed shogi with a very good shape. He put a great effort in always maintaining his good shape. Unfortunately, he did not take the tournament victory after not having found any of the winning continuations against Carl Johan Nilsson and after having forgotten to press the clock (!) in a totally won position against Anders Vidal. Carl Johan Nilsson traditionally won the tournament. It is not an easy task to win 100 % of the games in a shogi tournament, but Carl Johan succeeded to do so this time. He needed some luck against Taguchi, but most often his opponents could not disturb his game enough to get a chance. Robert Soderberg and sincerely yours, who organised the tournament together with Carl Johan, maybe performed best as organisers this time, but we were still among the players with four points together with Taguchi-san and Mikael. Terje Christoffersen, Norwegian dan player, got beaten by some Swedish raw talent. He was all the time in the top and he played the strongest opponents, but he had to be satisfied with 50 % in the end. Coming men on the lower half seemed to be Johan Wikstrom, who became the best Trollhattan debut player, as well as Lennart Alfredsson, Henrik Hellberg, and Daniel Ivarsson, who in their third tournament in half a year all scored two points. Bo Flood, Trollhattan, also scored two points in his debut tournament. These players displayed some good shape, and when they have reached around ten tournaments, like the boys from Nosnasskolan, they will also be pretenders to the medals. Trollhattan Open 2002 (if necessary, convert to "Courier" in order to increase the readability) Rat ELO 1 2 3 4 5 6 P SOS SDOS PROG 1. C J Nilsson 2d 1871 8+ 5+ 2+ 3+ 4+ 7+ 6 23 23 21 2. A Vidal 5k 1312 12+ 7+ 1- 13+ 3+ 5+ 5 22 16 17 3. K Taguchi 2d 1665 16+ 11+ 4+ 1- 2- 10+ 4 23 12 16 4. M Jansson 8k 1024 13+ 8+ 3- 6+ 1- 9+ 4 22 12 15 5. R Soderberg 2k 1538 17+ 1- 14+ 9+ 7+ 2- 4 20 9 15 6. M Danerud 2d 1588 18+ 9- 10+ 4- 15+ 8+ 4 15 8 13 7. T Christoffers.1d 1726 10+ 2- 9+ 11+ 5- 1- 3 24 9 13 8. R Nordgren 9k 980 1- 4- 17+ 12+ 11+ 6- 3 21 7 9 9. T Gammelgard 7k 1132 15+ 6+ 7- 5- 13+ 4- 3 19 8 13 10.R Skotnicki 12k 706 7- 12+ 6- 14+ 16+ 3- 3 18 7 10 11.J Ahlqvist 15k 1293 14+ 3- 15+ 7- 8- 13+ 3 16 6 11 12.J Wikstrom 15k 400 2- 10- 18+ 8- 14+ 15+ 3 15 4 7 13.L Alfredsson 15k 364 4- 17+ 16+ 2- 9- 11- 2 18 3 9 14.H Hellberg 15k 400 11- 16+ 5- 10- 12- 18+ 2 15 2 6 15.B Flood 15k 400 9- 18+ 11- 17+ 6- 12- 2 14 1 8 16.D Ivarsson 15k 525 3- 14- 13- 18+ 10- 17+ 2 12 1 4 17.B Tjallgren 15k 400 5- 13- 8- 15- 18+ 16- 1 13 0 2 18.F Bahbou 15k 400 6- 15- 12- 16- 17- 14- 0 14 0 0 July 27-28, the first ever Swedish Shogi Team Championship will be played in Norrkoping, where we can play outdoors in case of good weather. Then we will: 1. Crown the first Swedish Shogi Team Champions 2. Destroy the old record of participation for shogi in Sweden 3. Have a nice time together Sincerely yours, Martin Danerud President of the Swedish Shogi Federation