1982 Sweden vs England: European Team Championship, Preliminary Group, 13-14 March 1982

	Sweden	Elo	Round 1	Round 2	England	Elo
1b	Harry Schüssler	2485m	1-0	0-1	Anthony J Miles	2575g
2w	Tom Wedberg	2435m	0-1	½-½	Jonathan S Speelman	2550g
3b	Axel Ornstein	2475m	0-1	1-0	A Jonathan Mestel	2500m
4w	Lars Ake Schneider	2435m	0-1	1-0	Nigel D Short	2430m
5b	Dan Cramling	2345f	0-1	1-0	Paul E Littlewood	2460m
6w	Ralf Akesson	2405m	0-1	0-1	William R Hartston	2450m
7b	Mats Sjoberg	2380	0-1	1-0	Shaun M Taulbut	2435m
8w	Mats Carlson	2335	0-1	-	Nigel R Davies	2410f
	Christer Bergstrom	2350	-	1-0	Mark L Hebden	2400
Goteborg, 13-14 March 1982			1-7	5½-2½	Match score 6½-9½
Reserve	Bengt Svensson	2330	1-0		Daniel J King	2365

BCM, May 1982, ppn 182-185 - by William R Hartston

This was the second match to take place within our three-team qualifying zone, Iceland having already scored a surprising 9-7 victory over Sweden. The bare score of the present match therefore indicates that England need only draw with Iceland in July to take a place in the final of this competition. Rarely, however, can a simple match score have hidden an encounter of such changing fortunes.

Neither side was at full strength for this match. So much international chess seems to be played these days that it is hard to gather a fully representative team together for a weekend. At first a little worried because we were missing grandmasters Nunn, Stean and Keene, the English mood improved when we learned that the top two Swedish players, Andersson and Karlson, both had commitments elsewhere. We celebrated by winning the first round in crushing style 7-1. Miles was the only casualty. He had flown direct to Sweden from the monster tournament in Indonesia. Eager to play, despite tiredness and jet-lag, he became involved in a far more messy, tactical game than he must have hoped for. The rest of us had a thoroughly enjoyable
day, none more so than the British Champion, whose Midas touch turned base metal into a winning attack: [score of P Littlewood - D.Cramling]

Since nobody was quite sure whether Tony Miles would arrive in time, we had brought two reserves to Sweden. In addition to the match proper, Daniel King played a game, during the first round, against the Swedish reserve. These players did not properly appreciate their comparatively unimportant status and proceeded to monopolise the interest of most of the spectators. Even though it did not count for the match, the game was watched with great interest: [score of B Svensson - D King] Don't ask me to explain it — I don't speak Pelikan!

The best technical achievement of the first round must be Speelman's win. though this might also be described as the most criminal ruination of a drawn ending by his opponent. Here is the position after White's 75th move: [T Wedberg - J Speelman]

That game was not in fact completed until after most of the second round had been played, but we had mentally chalked up the point for Speelman, so entered the second day with an overwhelming 7-1 lead. Then everything began to go wrong. The top two boards were fine: Miles avenged his first-round defeat in determined style while Speelman-Wedberg was a heavy strategic game ending in what was, remarkably, to be the only draw of the whole match. Connoisseurs of Miles's opening repertoire will be interested to learn that he met Schüssler's 1 d4 with 1...Nc6, looked a little worse from the opening, but systematically outplayed his opponent. The rest of the English team made an almost total mess of the day with a series of disasters. Hebden overstepped the time limit, making his 40th move in a winning position. The theme for the rest of the games was equally one of spoiling good games. Indeed, after two or three hours play, our positions had looked even better than on the first day. Perhaps the tension was gone after scoring so many points. My win was rather accidental: after overlooking something in the middle-game, my good position had gone the way of the others, but somehow there was a saving resource. The scrappiest game of the day was on third board, where Ornstein paused for a very long think after sacrificing a piece. It had all been based on a miscalculation (he overlooked that 17...Ne6 was possible). Still he managed to conjure up enough attack, but only Mestel's playing for a win let the white pieces in for the decisive attack. [score of A Ornstein - Mestel]

I could continue the catalogue of English disasters, but discretion suggests that they are best left undocumented. At least we won the match. (We cannot let the only English hundred percenter get away without a game, so we quote this complicated effort from the second round — BCM Ed.) [score of Hartston - Akesson]

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File Updated

Date	Notes
24 December 2025	First posted here. All 16 match games plus 1 played by reserve players. Many thanks to Andy Ansel for contributing the games.