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Snurre Open (the teamtalkingchess tournament played Sunday evening) attracted eight teams including a total of 31 participants and 1 arbiter - another strong evidence for the fact that even rapid chess can be attractive if served in a creative and original version? In teamtalkingchess each team consists of 2-4 players, handling six boards with all rights to discuss their game and to exchange game whenever they want to do. The outcome again became a social chess chaos, and no one complained that it lasted half an hour longer than expected. Fascinated foreginer of last year was IM Mathias Womacka, who having appeared to be a typical careful and cold-faced German for five days then, was observed dancing around the tables while winning the tematalking together with his team "Troll Bastards". Fascinated foreigner of this year became GM Alexei Lugovoi, which after having turned his neck around the corner just to check the reason of the noise, became so inspired that he complained about not having a team until he got one! Both qualification groups were tight, and following 3-3 in both top meetings the first place in group A was shared between "We Cannot Even Agree About That" (FM Carlsen, Tallaksen, Stokke and IA Lahlum) and "Pussycats" (GM Kallio, IM Agopov, FM Molander and Korhonen), and the first place in group B between "The Bompi Bishops" (GM Lugovoi, IM Bluvshtein, FM Nordahl and Hammer, with Svensen as a substitute - but still no FM Bjarte "Bompi" Leer-Salvesen!?) and "Three players and an organizer" (IM Womacka, Charleshouse, Unander and Sander). Having defeated "Bompi Bishops" with a tiny margin in the semi-final between the two GM and IM-teams, "Pussycats" were the favourite for the final. They however surprisingly went down 2.5-3.5 against "We Cannot Even Agree About That", who at least were able to agree about a winnning strategy: Stokke to play three openings, Tallaksen & Lahlum to share the other three, light-footed team captain Carlsen running around as a middle game libero - and Tallaksen to be called in case of an endgame! But the results anyway is not that important in teamtalkingchess, no one counted their lost games this social and friendly evening.... |