By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
FRESH from defeating Israeli Grand Master (GM) Ilia Smirin at the Rilton Cup in Sweden, Zambia’s top chess player Daniel Jere was beaten by another Swede GM Pia Cramling in the Rilton Cup at the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm.
At this tournament organised by the Stockholm Chess Federation, Jere’s loss pegged him down to 2.5 points after five rounds of the Rilton Cup whose highest ranked player is Smirin with an ELO rating of 2644 while the Zambian is 2370.
Jere had a great start to this tournament, winning two and drawing the other in the first three matches but can now look to the sixth round with optimism as he plays Fruzsina Szente Varga of Hungary who has a lower ELO rating.
Varga however, remains a serious threat as he like Jere is also on 2.5 points from the five rounds played.
After five rounds, Jere is ranked 32 from the 85 players in his category and just two notches above his start ranking.
There are two other Zambian representatives at the tournament in the Sörensen twins of Alva and Hampus, whose father Peter, is an envoy at the Swedish Embassy in Lusaka.
First up is Alva, who defeated Philip Sandberg of Sweden to get her first point and she was in round two set to play Simon Ingelman-Sundberg in the second round of the tournament.
At the beginning of the tournament, Alva was ranked 39th but after the win, her ranking rose to number 23.
Hampus lost his fifth round match to Olle Ålgars of Sweden to remain on 2.5 points after he had an impressive first four rounds where he lost just once.
In the next round, Hampus plays Björn Andersson also of Sweden, who is also on 2.5 points.
Hampus opened the tournament with wins over Sven Degerfeldt and Fredrik Larsson which was sandwiched by a draw against Anton Darnell before losing to International Master (IM) Ilena Krasenkova and then Ålgars.
A the start of the tournament, Hampus was rated 105 from the 107 players in the category and his prospects after round five have risen to 45.