Emanuel Berg

Emanuel Berg
at the Dresden Olympiad, 2008
Full name	Emanuel Berg
Country	Sweden
Born	(1981-12-28) 28 December 1981 (age 35) Skövde, Sweden
Title	Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2569 (March 2017)
Peak rating	2627 (November 2010)

Emanuel Berg (born 28 December 1981 in Skövde) is a Swedish chess player with the title Grandmaster.

As a youngster, he made solid progress and was consequently selected to represent his country in the various age categories of the European Youth and World Youth Championships. Surprisingly, he did not manage to secure a medal, but came very close in 1996, at Rimavská Sobota, finishing the European Under-16 contest with a share of 2nd-5th places and missing the silver and bronze medals only on tie-break.

As Berg received his chess education in the shadow of national legend Ulf Andersson, it might be expected that his playing style would mirror that of Sweden's most successful player of the modern era. However, the styles of the players are almost polar opposites, the younger man showing a distinct preference for aggressive, dynamic chess.

He spent several years making slow, but sure progress. He earned his GM title in 2004, following a number of tournament successes, including wins at Budapest 1999, Skellefteå 2001 (shared with Jonny Hector) and Bermuda 2002 (after a play-off).

Since 1998, he has regularly entered the national championship, finishing runner-up on no fewer than five occasions (2001, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008) and winning the event in 2009 and 2010. His consistent, strong performances have helped his Elo rating to edge past 2600.

There have been other notable results in international competition; he was joint winner of 's Rilton Cup in 2004/5 (with Sergei Volkov and Evgeny Gleizerov), won outright at Sóller in 2006 and was fourth behind Ivanchuk, Karpov and Kasimdzhanov at the Keres Memorial the same year. In 2007, he came third at Wijk aan Zee's Corus 'C' event (after Michał Krasenkow and Ian Nepomniachtchi), having featured in a five-way tie for first place at the Politiken Cup (with Krasenkow, Sargissian, de Firmian and Malakhov). At the 'Politiken' event of 2008, he finished just a half point behind the leaders.