Trom­soe Chess Olympiad 2014

The Rapid and Blitz World Cham­pi­onships in Dubai in June had high pri­or­ity for me this year. I hoped the Dubai Chess &Cul­ture cen­tre would con­tinue to be a suc­cess­ful venue for me 10 years after scor­ing my final GM norm down there.

The Rapid and Blitz World Cham­pi­onships in Dubai in June had high pri­or­ity for me this year. I hoped the Dubai Chess &Cul­ture cen­tre would con­tinue to be a suc­cess­ful venue for me 10 years after scor­ing my final GM norm down there.

A month later it has resided into the back­ground, but at the time win­ning the Rapid and Blitz titles resem­bled the feel­ings after round 10 in the World Cham­pi­onship match against V.Anand in Novem­ber last year! The tense, some­times nerve-wracking swings within games and in the stand­ings dur­ing the tour­na­ments made it exhil­a­rat­ing and exhaust­ing at the same time. I look for­ward to sim­i­lar events in the future.

With the titles in my belt, it is good to have a vari­ety of chal­lenges ahead. Hav­ing dropped the 2012 Chess Olympiad, I’ve looked for­ward to play­ing on home soil in the Trom­soe Olympiad together with the great bunch of GM’s (Agdestein, Ham­mer, Johan­nessen and Lie) on the Nor­we­gian team.

We did some chess train­ing and team-building at the Krageroe resort last week where I suc­cess­fully pre­pared for the World Cham­pi­onship match last August.

And, I’ve already achieved one of my ambi­tions dur­ing the Olympiad hav­ing trekked the Troms­dal­stind (1238 meter above sea level) with my par­ents ear­lier today.

In my absence the Nor­we­gian 1st team won 2.5 – 1.5 against Yemen in Round 1, and we will grad­u­ally meet stronger oppo­nents in the days ahead. Fin­land is next.

Stay tuned!