12th May, 2003

UKRAINIAN superstar Vassily Ivanchuk had a rare first place with victory
at the eleventh Sigeman & Co. Tournament, which uniquely for a
modern-day event was split between two cities and two countries.

As part of a major drive to increase cultural exchanges between the two
Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Denmark, the first half of the
tournament was held in Malmo, with the final four rounds played in
Copenhagen.

Ivanchuk, the world number twelve, dominated the event in both venues
and put in a gritty performance to finish on an unbeaten score of 7/9, a
full point ahead of his nearest rival, the Danish number one Peter
Heine-Nielsen. Making the most of the freedom from academic work with
his gap year before going on to Oxford in October, England's Luke
McShane had yet another good outing and scored a creditable third place
with 5.5.

The ever-adventurous McShane only came undone in the tournament with his
reliance in playing an ultra-sharp variation of the Gruenfeld Defence
favoured by world number one Garry Kasparov that resulted in his only
two defeats in the tournament. After losing to Peter Heine-Nielsen in
the first round, in the final round McShane was hit by another Dane,
Curt Hansen, with a little-known stunning sacrifice 20 Nxg6!; an amazing
concept that appears to have lain undiscovered for over thirty years due
to a major miss-assessment of the line.

Final scores: 1 GM V Ivanchuk (Ukraine) 7/9; 2 GM P Heine-Nielsen
(Denmark) 6; 3 GM L McShane (England) 5.5; 4-7 GM S Berg-Hansen
(Denmark, GM T Hillarp-Persson (Sweden), GM C Hansen (Denmark), GM E
Sutovsky (Israel) 4.5; 8-9 GM J Hector (Sweden), GM J Timman (Holland)
4; 10 B Lindberg (Sweden) 0.5.

C Hansen - L McShane
11th Sigeman & Co., (9)
Gruenfeld Defence
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 4 cxd5 Nxd5 5 e4 Nxc3 6 bxc3 Bg7 7 Bc4 c5 8
Ne2 0-0 9 0-0 Nc6 10 Be3 Bg4 11 f3 cxd4 12 cxd4 Na5 13 Bd3 Be6 14 d5
Bxa1 15 Qxa1 f6 16 Bh6 Re8 17 Kh1 Rc8 18 Nf4 Bd7 19 e5 Nc4 20 Nxg6 Ba4
21 e6 hxg6 22 Bxg6 Ne5 23 Be4 Bc2 24 Bxc2 Rxc2 25 Qd1 Kh7 26 f4 Kxh6 27
fxe5 Rc4 28 Qd3 b5 29 exf6 exf6 30 d6 Kg7 31 Qg3+ Kh7 32 Qh3+ Kg7 33
Qg3+ Kh7 34 Qf3 Kg6 35 Qd5 Rh8 36 h3 a6 37 Qd3+ Kg7 38 Qg3+ Kh7 39 Rf5
Qe8 40 Rxf6 Rg8 41 Qd3+ Kg7 42 Qf5 Rc5 43 Rf7+ 1-0

JOHN B HENDERSON