Klaus Berg is a really solid player and has only lost two games the last fifteen months. Before the game I expressed my wishes to play a long game against him, and it really was. We got an interesting position after the opening, where black has a weak pawn on d6 but a solid position. I think he played the position a little to slow, and after five and a half hours I had managed to win the d6-pawn, and advanced three passers to the seventh rank.

I had 0-3 against Danielsen before our game in round 8. In all three games I had made big mistakes in time trouble, but this is not by chance. Danielsen plays fast and forces his opponents to make those mistakes. This time I was determined to avoid time trouble. I also had a second game strategy: to go for the initiative with black. I wanted to do this even if it was slightly dubious, since I think that Danielsen is at his best either in very simple position or when he himself has the initiative.

I only managed with one of the strategies. I avoided time trouble, but unfourtunately I steered the position into a very simple one. It should be equal, but Danielsen managed to outplay me and won deservedly. It was my first loss in more than twenty games, and a very tough one.

In the last round I played the talented italian Brunello, who is already a Grandmaster at 2550 and has won some 60 elo points the last months. I was a bit lazy when I prepared and forgot to check one of his games, which was the one he repeated. We got a very complicated position where he can sacrifice a piece in a lot of ways. I saw some of them, but missed the beatiful Nxg2 he played in the game. After that it is just over.

Of course it is not nice to lose the last two games, but anyway I leave Skanderborg with a good feeling. It was a very well organized tournament, with friendly players, excellent playing hall and long games. I analysed almost all of my games with the opponents, which is not always the case. The closing dinner was also very nice. Actually I think I will travel alone to tournaments more often in the future.

After the game I catched a train to Neumunster. The border police was very suspicious towords me, and had to make a call to check if they had something on me, but this time they did not find anything! In Neumunster I stayed in a small hotel, woke up at 06.30 and continued by train to Berlin. Here I played for Greifswald against Weisse Dame in Oberliga. The teams were approximately equally rated, but after the time control we had 5-0 and won the match convincigly! It will be a pleasant journey with the ferry "Skåne" from Rostock tonight. I will sleep on the ferry deck and wake up at 06.00 in Trelleborg.

Today a plastic detail at my mobile phone was broken, but I think that was just to be expected when you open it up to take up the battery so often.

Since I have been a lot in Norway I try to speak a little bit norweigan. It was probably a bit confusing when I happened to speak my weak norweigan in Denmark. Anyway, in the end I tried to speak some danish instead. I do a lot of mistakes, of course, but chess players are very used to make mistakes! Now I have by accident used danish in Germany a few times... Well, tomorrow it is swedish again!