Helsinki Grand Prix 1997 28-29 June 1997 Report by Vesa Laatikainen While the rainy and cold weather was reigning the continental Europe and the British islands, the warm and sunny Finland saw the Russians, the Britons and an Italian entering Helsinki Grand Prix in the last weekend of June. Pihlajamäki school, near the local devil's churns from the iceage, was a spacious site for the 29 players in the competition. Aleksei Lazarev hasn't lost a game in the last two years in Helsinki Grand Prix. That is a tournament winning strategy. Viktor Bogdanov and Matti Siivola both dropped a game against Aleksei and peacefully shared the second place. Vesa Laatikainen repeated his WAGC'97 loss against Lazarev in the last round, after losing the first round game against Lauri Paatero. (I would like to some time win against Aleksei but as it is, the fourth place remains.) Olli Lounela, Francis Roads, Lauri Paatero, Enzo Pedrini, Vladimir Gorzhaltsan, Alison Jones - they all followed and scored according to their ranks. We also had to promote four of the kyu players. No GP points for Oleg Gavrilov this time. This was the first time Helsinki Grand Prix appeared as a cut-down two-day version. It might make it easier to attend but then, when are we supposed to get into the sauna? The sauna was now arranged after the tournament in Sunday evening. Surprisingly (not), almost everybody had reserved time to bath, to feel the spirit of "löyly" in the sauna and to refresh themselves swimming in the lake Kuusijärvi. The only small complain was that we Finnish sung "out of tune", my goodness gracious me. What else: we played go outside through the midnight without any further light than the sky. The weather was better than anywhere else in Europe that time. In the restaurant "Lappi" go players could taste reindeer meat, Lappish mushroom soup or plenty of salmon. Those who didn't feel like they had played enough could continue their Grand Prix round in Petrozavodsk the following weekend. Helsinki Grand Prix 1997 Results PL PLAYE NAT GR 1 2 3 4 5 MM PT SOS 1 Lazarev, Alexei RUS 6D 9+ 3+ 5+ 2+ 4+ 10 5 41 2 Bogdanov, Viktor RUS 6D 12+ 8+ 10+ 1- 5+ 9 4 38 Siivola, Matti FIN 5D 10+ 1- 13+ 7+ 8+ 9 4 38 4 Laatikainen, Vesa FIN 5D 7- 9+ 6+ 11+ 1- 8 3 40 5 Lounela, Olli FIN 4D 15+ 14+ 1- 8+ 2- 8 3 38 6 Roads, Francis GB 4D 8- 11+ 4- 14+ 12+ 8 3 34 7 Paatero, Lauri FIN 3D 4+ 3- 10+ 8 3 24 8 Pedrini, Enzo ITA 3D 6+ 2- 12+ 5- 3- 7 2 40 9 Gorzhaltsan, V RUS 2D 1- 4- 11- 13+ 14+ 7 2 37 10 Jones, Alison GB 2D 3- 22+ 2- 12+ 7- 7 2 36 11 Jantunen, Markku FIN 1D 13+ 6- 9+ 4- 15+ 7 3 35 12 Karppinen, Ari FIN 2D 2- 15+ 8- 10- 6- 6 1 37 13 Li, Bo CHI 1D 11- 17+ 3- 9- 18+ 6 2 34 14 Alanko, Otso FIN 2K 23+ 5- 15+ 6- 9- 6 2 33 15 Jones, Andrew GB 3D 5- 12- 14- 16+ 11- 6 1 33 16 Heino, Jarmo FIN 3K 17- 23+ 18+ 15- 19+ 6 3 26 17 Gavrilov, Oleg RUS 3K 16+ 13- 19+ 22+ 6 3 21 18 Stepine, Serguei RUS 3K 21+ 19- 16- 20+ 13- 5 2 27 19 Rönkkö, Seppo FIN 6K 20+ 18+ 17- 27+ 16- 5 3 25 20 Torikka, Mauri FIN 6K 19- 21+ 22+ 18- 24+ 5 3 23 21 Rovio, Teemu FIN 6K 18- 20- 25+ 23+ 22+ 5 3 22 22 Kohonen, Sari FIN 3K 26+ 10- 20- 17- 21- 4 1 26 23 Berezine, Alexandre RUS 5K 14- 16- 24- 21- 28+ 4 1 23 24 Alenius, Jyrki FIN 10K 29+ 25- 23+ 26+ 20- 4 3 17 25 Saarinen, Mikko FIN 14K 28+ 24+ 21- 29+ 27+ 4 4 15 26 Sokolov, Ilia RUS 13K 22- ++ 28+ 24- 29+ 3 3 11 27 Lampén, Tapio FIN 6K 19- 25- 3 1 9 28 Siivola, Sinikka FIN 12K 25- 29+ 26- ++ 23- 2 2 12 29 Aleksejev, A RUS 14K 24- 28- ++ 25- 26- 1 1 13 PLC: place of player in tournament, NAT: nationality, GR: grade MM: MacMahon-score, PT: points, SOS: Sum Opponents' Scores