By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
ZAMBIA’S Daniel Jere redeemed some pride in the eighth round at the ongoing Rilton chess Cup in Stockholm, Sweden when he forced a draw against a Russian International Master (IM) Gagarin Vasilij.
Coming off a poor seventh round where all three Zambian representatives at the tournament lost, Jere managed a stalemate while the Sörensen twins of Hampus and Alva had mixed fortunes picking up a draw and a win.
Jere, who was ranked 34 at the start of the tournament, saw his eighth round draw against the Russian take his points tally to four and into 34th position going into the ninth and last round.
In the ninth round, Jere will face Norwegian Even Thingstad who has a lower ELO rating and a win could take him higher than his start rank.
There was another draw through Hampus who stalemated an eighth round game against Alexis Duenas of Sweden to get to four points.
Hampus will in the final round play Alfven Jörgen of Sweeden, who is on 3.5 points and his current ranking of 43 is way above the start rank which was at a poor 105 from the 107 players.
But there was a win for Alva who checkmated Alan Saleh of Sweden in a round six game to rise to 3.5 points and plays Filip Alexandersson, also of Sweden.
Alexandersson just like Alva is on 3.5 points and her current standing of 17th is also fulfilling having started in position 39 from the 56 players in her category.
