The Team and the League

I should probably say something about the Croatian team I am playing in. It all began with a pretty surprising email I got in the spring of 2012. A player from the Croatian team of SK Brda in Split asked me whether I would be interested in joining their team for the national team championship in September/October of that year.

The Croatian league is played as a round-robin tournament with ten teams on nine consecutive days. This means that it feels like a real tournament. Each team fields six boards, only two of which can be filled by foreigners. This means that strong domestic players are in high demand (and tend to be pricey), whereas for the foreigners, team captains can shop around a bit.

In the case of SK Brda, however, there is no shopping around because the club is basically broke. Negotiations with the City of Split for sponsoring are tough every year, and the club is happy if the hotel rooms and the meals can be paid. Hence, instead of some 2600+ players who would demand a substantial playing fee, they looked around for strong amateurs that could have some reasonable chance to survive on the very strong first boards. Behind them, Brda lined up their local players from Split: Miroslav Rade, Mateo Ivic, Zeljko (“Zuki”) Susak and Ivan Krnic. Since 2014, Darko Doric from Rijeka, is also part of the team.

The team photo. From left to right: Jan Sprenger, Ivan Krnic, Arthur Pijpers, Darko Doric, Miroslav Rade, Mateo Ivic, Zeljko Susak

No idea how they got the idea to approach me, among all the decent amateurs with a rating of 2500. They might have seen that I had played against strong opponents in the Bundesliga, and they may have guessed that I was less interested in money than in the “soft factors” at a tournaments. Indeed, I enjoy tournaments in a beautiful place (such as the Adriatic coast) and the opportunity to play against strong opponents.

Anyway, I played for SK Brda in 2012 and 2013 and we had lots of fun together, although in both years, the team's campaign was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2014 I could not make it, but the team got again promoted to the 1A league. In 2015, we finally met again, and this time, I brought Arthur Pijpers, my teammate in our Dutch club LSG, with me.

I will now introduce the locals of SK Brda one by one. (I leave out Darko Doric since he lives in a different part of the country. But be assured that he is a very nice and open-minded guy and a strong player, too.)

Mateo, Kapetan, Darko and Rade at the analysis.

The Master of the Game: Miroslav Rade

Title: International Master
Rating: 2433
Age: 58

Miroslav Rade is a phenomenon. When you think of an ageing master, you would usually think of somebody who plays conservatively, is afraid of complications, happy with a draw, and so on. None of this is true of the best local player of SK Brda. His game is principled, he is not afraid of any 2600+ player and he has an amazing understanding of almost any position that may arise. He believes in the truth of certain principles in chess (in fact, he is now writing a book intended as a complete chess school) and his approach to the game is dictated by logic, simplicity and an infallible feeling for the requirements of the position. Because he rarely misplays any position, he often beats strong grandmasters. This time, Jankovic and Lenic were among his victims (I will write more about this later). If he played more than 15 games a year, the Grandmaster title would just be a matter of time.

Rade (Croatian chess players often call each other by second names) is not known as a big chatterbox, but his analysis vocabulary, where chess moves and heavy swearing follow each other in close succession, is equally legendary as his chess understanding.

How can one maintain so much strength, energy and vivacity at this advanced age? Certainly, it helps that he works as a night guard where he can study chess literally day and night. There is also the story that his wife once woke up at three o'clock in the morning and saw her husband analyzing a chess position in the bed. She took the pieces and threw them out of the window. He did not say a word---but took the most valuable crystal glasses of the household and threw them out of the window, too. Since then, it is reported, chess is no more a point of contention in the house of Rade.

The Reporter: Mateo Ivic

Title: FIDE Master
Rating: 2267
Age: 41

Mateo works as a journalist for a local newspaper, but he is also the president of SK Brda and the main organizer behind the scenes. During the league, he writes entertaining posts on the club's blog. He is a cheerful guy with a love for attacking chess, and the thing he hates most are quick draws without an effort to fight ("You may lose every single game, but fight!"). No surprise that he loves to celebrate and to drink with friends. This attitude is also reflected on the board where his performances is usually either stellar or wanting---his "normal" score in 2015 was an exception!

The Goalkeeper: Zeljko Susak

Rating: 2196
Age: 56
Nickname: Suki, Big White Shark

Zeljko Susak, called Suki, is a sound player with a good understanding of general principles and a very tough defender. In 2015, he managed to hold a couple of difficult positions, too, and he was one of the best performers in the team (relative to expectation), second only to Rade. Especially impressive was his victory in he 8th round, where he beat a much stronger opponent in grand style. His only weakness is fear: his White openings are a bit timid and he gets nervous in complex positions where three results are possible. Offside the board, he is best known for his large appetite (which also deserved him his second nickname), but somehow he manages to keep a normal figure.

Suki and Arthur

The Captain: Ivan Krnic

Rating: 2169
Age: 55
Nickname: Krpo, Kapetan, Kapetan Bonaca

The team captain used to be the actual captain of a ship sailing the seven seas. At some point, he quit the job---fraudulent ship owners, too much stress, and so on. More time to devote to his chess career. Learning the game late, at the age of 28, he plays fearless attacking chess and could have won all three games he played. He also seems to possess some supernatural capacities. Knowing that Arthur would leave after six rounds, he told us before going to the Captain's Meeting: "I will make sure that we get a good scheme". He drew number 10, meaning that we would face the three strongest teams in the last three rounds. Perhaps the most important single contribution to the successful survival campaign in the 1A league.

The Absentee: Drazen Curic

Rating: 2246
Age: 40
Nickname: Barba, Mutant

Drazen was born in Bosnia, but he grew up in Germany and speaks the language fluently. He is a true bohemien whose charme easily enchants people (ladies in particular), who knows to celebrate like nobody else, but who can also suffer the blues for an extended period of time. He shows the same attitude on the chessboard. When he is in the right mood, he perfectly knows where to place his pieces, and with his unconventional, intuition-based chess, he can be a dangerous opponent for anyone. So did he in 2012, when he started excellently into the league. But when he feels that chess in senseless anyway, things can badly go wrong. This time, he did not play due to some internal issues, but he followed the team avidly via internet.