JSM: I-HSK 3 – LauttSK 1

On January 14, 2012, the JSM 2nd division match Itä-Helsingin Shakkikerho 3 – Lauttasaaren Shakkikerho ended 0–3:

1. Pauli Jormanainen (1788) – Jyrki Heikkinen (2067) 0–1

2. Mikael Sjöberg (1792) – Per Ertbjerg (2062) 0–1

3. Pentti Heikkinen (1634) – Evgeny Sobenin (1926) ½–½

4. Kai Backman (1691) – Timo Joutsivuo (1928) ½–½

5. Seppo Toikkanen (1528) – Petr Veselý (1927) 0–1

After the LauttSK international year 2011, it was most appropriate that in the new year's first match, our team was the most international so far! We had, however, three Finnish citizens in the team, and one of the other two players had the Kela card, so we complied with the JSM rule: "Only one foreigner is allowed to play in a 5-men team."

We were clearly favorites in the match. Thanks to his opponent's too aggressive play, Per was able to win his game first. After that, Evgeny and Timo drew their games. I had an "almost winning" position for a long time, and was finally able to decide it, which guaranteed our win.

Last fall I wrote about a strange JSM rule. "When increment time is used, the captains of both teams are regarded as arbiters, and the Fide rule 6.8 is followed":

A flag is considered to have fallen when the arbiter observes the fact or when either player has made a valid claim to that effect.

I had believed the JSM rule is quite useless, but today the flag of Petr's opponent had fallen before move 40, and Petr hadn't claimed a win because he wasn't sure of the exact rules. Together with the captain of the other team, we verified that the clock had been set up correctly, after which we declared Petr as the winner.

As usual, our JSM games are in the club's PGN archives.