For the first time in its history, the TJ Spartak Letohrad chess club sent a team to a foreign tournament. We took part in the Finnish blitz chess team championships for four-person teams.
Our long-time player Petr Veselý has been living with his family in the Finnish city of Espoo for several years, so our trip had several goals... Visit a friend, play chess and, last but not least, get to know the beauties and attractions of Finland.
Our departure awaited us on Tuesday August 1 2023 from the Prague airport, and the gateway to the Nordic country for us was the airport in Vantaa. After getting to know Petr's family over excellently prepared salmon (probably the most typical Finnish food, besides the inescapable "kahvi" and the blueberry juice) the first item on our weekly program on Wednesday was getting to know the beauties of Helsinki.
The walk along the harbor with the old market hall, where we tasted various local delicacies, was very impressive, and no visitor should miss a visit to the architectural monuments in the center of Helsinki. The Orthodox-style Uspenski church is beautifully decorated inside, the Evangelical white stone cathedral is a clear dominant feature over the harbor and the Church in the rock is truly remarkable. For a peaceful walk and possibly a swim, I recommend the island of Seurasaari, which is designed as an open-air museum of ancient village architecture with a very pleasant cafe in a barn and a famous restaurant.
After a pleasantly spent day, we took part in a blitz championship tournament of the local chess club LauttSSK in the evening. It was an excellent opportunity for our whole team not only to get to know the different playing style of the Finnish players, but also an opportunity to talk about the game of chess in English. A great way to practice for the expected weekend tournament. We would like to thank the Lauttasaari club for inviting us to the tournament.
On Thursday we moved some 350 km further north to the vicinity of the championship venue in the town of Seinäjoki. We rented a log cabin by the lake in the neighboring village of Peräseinäjoki.
We boosted our chess training by hikes in the beautiful nature full of blueberries, swims in the lake, a rowboat trip, some minigolf...
... and by having a barbecue every evening. Against all forecasts, the weather worked out wonderfully for us, which was a bit comical when talking to family members from the Czech Republic, because it was raining heavily and cold in our homeland at the time. Turns out we flew to Finland to warm up.
But even more than the pleasant weather, we were surprised by the cleanliness of all the tourist attractions and the courtesy of the local people with which they treated all the common facilities. Unfortunately, for the Czechs, this is an unprecedented or almost unimaginable thing.
After three days of training, a weekend tournament of four-member teams awaited us at a pace of 2×5 minutes per game in "olympic" system (each point on the individual boards adds up the total score). Saturday was qualifying. We had 21 matches against drawn opponents. Together we scored 40½ points, which was enough to advance to the second non-championship final group. Despite the heavy game load, we practiced a little on Saturday evening, which helped some more, some less.
In Sunday's group we had 23 games from which we got 42½ points, taking 16th place in the group. In the overall ranking this meant 64th place out of 136 participants. Particularly admirable was the performance of Petr Veselý on the first board, who scored 16 points on Sunday and was the best in the group on his board. The overall winner of the tournament was the team from Tampere.
But for our team, the tournament was, above all, a great experience in an excellent friendly atmosphere and a good excuse to get to know many nice places and many friendly people.
On the way back to Helsinki, we stopped to swim on the beautiful beach of one of the lakes near Tampere and then at the sea directly in Espoo at a wonderful summer temperature of 28 °C. The return to cold Prague on Tuesday was not all that pleasant, but the memories of the trip to Finland will remain nothing but positive for our entire team.
Written by Kamil Mikyska
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