Another international tournament on the calendar :) This year the Swedish Open is held at the Scandic Triangeln Hotel in Malmö. I have a room in that hotel, so I don't need to walk or drive or whatever to get to the venue :D Though the tournament was on the 3rd floor and my room was on the 10th floor. :) Elevators with a view. Bit scarey at first, but after that it's actually pretty cool. 20 floors in total.
I flew from Eindhoven Airport to Kopenhagen and from there took a train to Malmö. This was basically the easiest (and cheapest) way to get there. Traveled with Anneke Kuijten and Antoine Kanters as they were on the same flight.
On Friday night there was a blind draw pairs competition which we all entered. We had dinner at the Texas Longhorn first. Not too bad...
The event was a disaster though. Half the people didn't show up at the boards because it started with about an hours delay. The other half consisted of a few very drunk people.... One of those was my pairs partner. A Dutch guy by the name of Henk Kleinman. We finally got to play our first game at around 23:00H. We lost 3-0.
I don't even know who won as I didn't stick around that long.
I did however have the honor and the pleasure to meet the legendary Vicky Pruim. She used to be Belgium's number one Lady and the World's number 3. She has been living in Sweden with her wife Tina for years now. I had heard so many stories about her and now I finally got to meet her. :)
Hopefully the singles will run more smoothly tomorrow...