This year's tournament picked up where last one's ended – with tough games and few draws. Especially pleasing for the audience was the success of the local players.
The lowest rated player, Axel Smith, got off to a flying start when he defeated Kjetil Lie with the black pieces. Smith had prepared a sharp variation that caught his Norwegian opponent by surprise. Despite this, Lie pushed hard with 16.e4 and 17.f4!? but after a few exact moves from Smith (18. - Qc6 and 19. - Nc5) White's position was in ruins. Smith could have finished off his opponent with 31. - Rd2+ 32.Kh1 Qh3! but chose to enter a promising endgame instead. Although he was clearly worse, Lie could perhaps have saved a draw with 34.c5 but in time-trouble he missed this last chance.
Tiger Hillarp Persson defended with the Najdorf variation against Jan Timman. The experienced Dutch player was surprisingly unsure of himself and allowed Hillarp to sacrifice an exchange on c3 in the thirteenth move. Tiger obtained excellent compensation and only a few moves later it was clear that Black had the superior position. Timman tried a few tactical tricks but Hillarp had no problems in mastering the position and steering the game to a victory.
Ralf Åkesson obtained a comfortable position against Vasilios Kotronias in a King's Indian. Black's position looked passive (knights on b7 and b8 after 25 moves) but it was not until he tried to create some counterplay with 29. - f5 that he really got into trouble. This only helped White in freeing up his bishop and opening up around Black's king. However, the decisive mistake only came with 35. - Ndxc4 which dropped a piece. Once Åkesson had survived the time-trouble Kotronias resigned the game.
Evgenij Agrest surprised everybody by playing the Caro-Kann against Daniel Stellwagen. The experiment was a success and after twenty moves or so, Agrest had an excellent position with the bishop pair. A couple of moves later he was forced to exchange one of his bishops and came under pressure. In the 22nd move he should probably have taken with his bishop on a4 instead of his rook since Stellwagen's 23.Qb2 forced Agrest to an exchange that he would have liked to avoid. In time-trouble Stellwagen missed an excellent opportunity (32.Rc7! Qb8 33.Qe7 Rf8 34.Nxe6!) but he also had a clear advantage in the resulting endgame. A couple of hours later the Dutch player was able to bring home the point.
Lars Bo Hansen got an academic advantage against Lajos Portisch, but despite his white-squared bishop it was not enough to create any serious winning chances. After some 30 moves, the players agreed to a draw.