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Surprise, surprise!

Both Dutchmen in the matches were in for a surprise today. On Max Warmerdam’s 1.d4, Daniel Dardha replied 1…d5 and went for a Semi-Tarrasch in which he took back on d5 with the knight. It looked like Warmerdam had to readjust; instead of the usual 6.e4 he went for 6.g3, but Dardha’s answers kept coming a tempo. This line is also well-known, but the question is whether Warmerdam had anticipated the arising position type for today.

In the other match something happened that we hadn’t seen in years of matches here in Hoogeveen: a King’s Indian! After 2…g6 (!?), Lucas van Foreest was also forced to contemplate for a while; all four players in these matches do this by looking away from the board. The dilemma becomes philosophical rather than concrete: first they have to choose their variation and they are probably not sure what their opponent has prepared there (this is all pure speculation, of course!).

On the flexible 5.h3/6.Be3, McShane came up with the even more flexible 6…Na6. Van Foreest quickly castled queenside which means we may be in for some excitement!

Hippopotamus

Yesterday we paid homage to the walrus, today we see a fully-fledged Hippopotamus in the game Heemskerk-Reulink in the Open. With the set-up a6/b6/d6/e6/g6/h6 and Bb7/Nd7/Ne7/Bg7, Black is supposed not to do ‘anything’ really, and in that respect Reulink’s move 11…f5 looks, let’s say, rather provocative…

Warmerdam-Dardha

Many pieces are coming off and the position looks dead equal; Dardha has spent only three minutes on this. What’s happening? Is anything actually happening?

Wow!

In the following position, Lucas van Foreest played a move that looks really crazy:

14.b4!? All or nothing!

Your first impulse here would be to play the piece sac 14…a5!? but that doesn’t seem to be so good. Another idea is 14…Na6 15.a3 Nc7 and 16…a5, but White can defend with his pieces and then start pushing his kingside pawns. However, why didn’t Lucas do that right away?

Anyway, McShane didn’t think long and replied 14…Na4 15.Nxa4 bxa4 which should also give him play against the white king. It looks, though, as if something will have to be sacrificed in the centre eventually.

Brave exchange sac Eelke de Boer

We were told that Eelke de Boer hasn’t been playing chess for some time. Perhaps that is something more players should do. He is on 3 out of 3 in the Open, and today he has made a brave and promising-looking exchange sacrifice against GM Luca Moroni:

20.Rxb4! The logical consequence, of course, of his previous move 19.Ra1-a4. 20…Bxb4 21.Qxb4

The result reminds a little of that famous game between Kasparov and Shirov, Horgen 1994:

Only with Eelke’s game it’s a bishop on b7 that is awfully placed. Not to mention the black king caught in the middle!

Exchange win Romanov

GM Evgeny Romanov has not sacrificed an exchange, but gained one against IM Bhakti Kulkarni and this looks completely over. Quite a strange way to win, Kasparov would say…

Fernandez and Ashwath crash through

English GM Daniel Fernandez is completely outplaying German player Henning Holinka, and Ashwath is just winning a rook in broad daylight against Dutch hope Arthur de Winter. The Indian first repeated the position once, but that didn’t leave Black any hope of anything better. De Winter has already resigned.

Dardha in the driver’s seat

A pawn sacrifice in a heavy-piece ending by Max Warmerdam, who offered a draw on move 17, has not really worked out. The position still appears to be even since even if Black can hold his extra e4-pawn, the rook ending is a draw. But this is definitely Daniel’s best chance so far in the match.

Lucas misses a great chance

The concept of Lucas van Foreest has worked out fine, and he seems to have just missed a chance at a massive advantage.

Van Foreest-McShane

Instead of the game move 31.Rhc1 he could have played 31.Nb2!, with the idea to (eventually) put the knight on c4, which is a positional disaster for Black. After the text, things are becoming tactically extremely messy, as often happens with positional disasters for Black in the KID.

Sharp defence by Moroni

Luca Moroni is defending very well against Eelke de Boer, as could be expected. He has given back the exchange, is now a pawn behind, but has found good counterchances along the a8-h1 diagonal.

McShane blunders!

Luke McShane has just made a horrible mistake. After Van Foreest’s interposition 38.Rd4 he should have taken with the queen, 38…Qxd4+, with an approximately equal ending. After 38…cxd4?? 39.Qd6! it is immediately over; perhaps the Englishman had missed that after 39…Re8 40.h6, 40…Qe5 is not possible due to 41.Qxe5 with mate on the back rank?!

Post mortem Van Foreest-McShane

Yes, McShane had missed 39.Qd6 after 39…cxd4. ‘I thought he had to play something like 40.Rd1 there.’

It was a typical KID, not the position but in the sense that Black was ‘positionally busted’ (McShane) but still found all kinds of ways to get play. ‘I thought 16…Ne8 was really cool,’ said Lucas van Foreest, ‘just taking your time to play …f7-f5 and create some space.’

The Dutchman had seen the strong 31.Nb2 but thought he had an extra move with 31.Rc1. ‘But then he came up with the genius reply 31…Re2.’

After that, as we saw, the game was completely open again, until Luke’s tragic miss on move 39.

Warmerdam holds

Max Warmerdam didn’t have any real problems holding today, but Daniel Dardha agreed that ’this was my best try so far, at least finally I could push him around for a bit.’

It could have been more than a bit if the Belgian had found mainly one strong move, as Warmerdam explained. ‘I had missed 26…Qb8,’ said the Dutchman. ‘I was counting on 26…Qc6 when I have 27.Qf3.’ One move later Dardha missed his best chance.

Instead of the game move 27…R2c3 he should have played 27…R8c5, according to Warmerdam. ‘Then I would have had a really tough job keeping the draw. Black is still a pawn up and my rooks are not well positioned.’

After the text, White had to play 28.Qg5 as after 28.Raxb5 Qxb5 29.Rxb5 Rxe3 30.fxe3 dxe4 31.Rb4 Black can protect the e4-pawn now with 31…Re8 (this is the difference with 27…R8c3?) and this could still be a nasty rook ending for White since Black’s king may penetrate White’s position over the light squares.

Now, instead of 28…dxe4, Warmerdam was still a bit apprehensive of 28…b4 29.Rxd5 b3, but after 30.Qf6, putting the queen on the right diagonal, White seems to be OK. In the rest of the game it was clear that Dardha was going to have to give back his e-pawn. He tried to develop an attack in the meantime, but Warmerdam was able to avert it.

Dardha: his best chance so far…

De Boer wins!

Eelke de Boer’s exchange sacrifice has led to a sensational win against Luca Moroni. We left the game while the Italian GM was just busy creating counterchances.

42…Re7? With clear intentions: Black threatens 43…Rd7 and 44…Qh1+. However, White comes first here with 43.Qd8! and now if 43…Rd7, 44.Qf6+ Kg8 45.Qg5+ Kh8 46.Rh3!, defending and attacking at the same time; White wins. Moroni gave the check on h1 immediately but now his rook was very badly placed and in the end he had to resign due to material loss.

A tremendous game by the 19-year-old Groningen player, catapulting him into the lead. He will probably have to share it with the Indian GM Bharath Subramaniyam, who is also making a strong impression and whose win in a rook ending against Onno Elgersma appears to be a matter of time now.

Another upset by Weihrauch

Another sensation of the tournament so far is the low-rated German junior player Jakob Weihrauch. After beating IM Thomas Beerdsen in round 2, Weihrauch also got the better of GM Sipke Ernst today.

Jakob Weihrauch

Ernst missed a win on move 36 and that was immediately fatal for him.

Instead of 36.Ng5?, leading to a lost ending after 36…Qxf4+, White could have created a deadly mate threat with 36.g4! here. Perhaps short of time, Ernst may have feared for his king after 36…Rxh3+, but after 37.Kxh3 fxg4+ 38.Kxg4 or even 38.Kh4 there are no problems for White; he’s just a rook up.

Bharath joins lead in Open

Next to Eelke de Boer, Bharath Subramaniyam is the second player with a full 100 percent score after four rounds in the Open. The Indian GM indeed defeated Onno Elgersma.

Same openings, other nuances

Both match games featured the same openings as in round 1, but it didn’t take long for Luke MShane and Max Warmerdam to deviate. The latter tried 6…a5 instead of 6…a6 from Game 1, after which the b2-b4 push is no longer possible.

Out of the (too?!) many possibilities White has against Kramnik’s notorious Berliner, McShane again opted for 10.Nc3 but after the knight trade on h4 deviated with 12.Be3 and 13.Ne2 instead of 12.Re1 from the first game.

Watch for Machteld

At the opening of round 3 of the Open, where Machteld van Foreest first appeared after a brief illness, tournament secretary Jeroen Bottema gave her, on behalf of tournament director Loek van Wely, a digital watch as a present because she recently won the bronze medal in the Girls U16 World Championship. ‘Don’t wear it during the game!’, chief arbiter Frans Peeters warned her — yes, it’s one of those watches! And just recently Bottema had informed a local paper that the Hoogeveen Tournament is extra alert on cheating this year since it’s such a precarious subject in chess at the moment.

Machteld in round 2, still without a watch

And just so you won’t forget: next Wednesday the Open will have two rounds, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Slow-motion

In their games, Luke Mc Shane and Lucas van Foreest remind us of a couple of walruses engaging in a fight for their territory. They keep hacking away at each other in slow-motion. The end of such a long battle can be very bloody, and that’s just how things went in their two previous games.

First full point for Duncan Klaren

Seventeen-year-old Duncan Klaren was the winner of the first decisive game of today, in the Open. His opponent Mick Godding played sharply, sacrificing his rook on a8 and perhaps hoping to trap White’s queen. This was refuted with a nice trick, but there were more options for Duncan to win. It was over on move 14.

Mistake Dardha?

Like in Game 1, Max Warmerdam brought his c6-knight to f4 but in this situation Daniel Dardha seems to have undertaken action in the centre in time. The position looked very drawish, with both sides’ queens eyeing several weak pawns. Daniel’s 24th move Re1 may be inaccurate since now not only b2 but also a4 is hanging after 24…Ne6. Perhaps he is planning the pawn sac 25.d5!? to obtain active play.

A beautiful trick

Wim Heemskerk is losing against Italian GM Luca Moroni. At one point, he lost a pawn and then missed a very beautiful counter:

Instead of 17…Be4 he could have played 17…Nd4!! here with the point 18.exd4 (18.Rxc8?? Nxe2+) 18…Rxc5 19.dxc5 Rxe2 20.b3 Be4 with so much counterplay that Black will probably win back his pawn. An engine line, of course!

A nice motif

Arthur de Winter, the 14-year-old king of the Dutch summer opens, is on 2 out of 2 and has a very pleasant advantage today against 18-year-old William Shakhverdian. However, it could have been much more if he had seen the following elegant motif:

17.cxd6 cxd6 (17…Rxd6 18.Qb5 and the e5-pawn is too weak) 18.f4!! (of course, 18.Qd2 Nh7 19.Rh6 should win too) 18…exf4 (18…gxf4 19.Bh4 followed by 20.g3 is also horrible) 19.Bf2 and moving the bishop to d4, with a lethal attack.

No blood

The ‘walrus fight’ McShane-Van Foreest did not end bloody today: everything remained within bounds. The players said afterwards that there are very many possibilities for both sides in this variation, without the balance tipping in any way. It was drawn in 30 moves.

Warmerdam winning

Max Warmerdam seems to be winning now. Daniel Dardha has played d4-d5 probably too late, now the dutchman is even two pawns up with a solid position.

Post-mortem Luke-Lucas

Indeed, there was no-one really getting lost in the Berlin labyrinth today. Both McShane and Van Foreest have been playing this line for years, and apart from some subtleties there was never a lot for Black to worry about. ‘You just have to have the feel for such positions,’ Van Foreest said. ‘I think 26.c5 was pretty crucial, otherwise Black plays 26…Bb4 and gets some more play. As it went, both flanks were locked with pawn moves and there was not a lot to be done.

Perhaps the nicest moment in this game came on move 18.

Here Van Foreest played 18…Be6, ‘and not 18…Bf5 in view of 19.g4!’

Hovhannisyan is back in business

Tournament favourite Robert Hovhannisyan is on 2½ out of 3. In a quiet game where the queens came off quickly (which is often dangerously reassuring for the weaker player) he gradually pushed Tim Brouwer off the board. Luca Moroni, who we talked about earlier, has already won and is on 3.

Osama Arabi played another good game today against his second GM, Daniel Fernandez. Not until the rook ending could the Englishman develop some pressure, and then things went wrong in an instructive way.

Arabi-Fernandez

40.Kg3? 40.Rd3 Rxe2+ 41.Kg3 was a draw. 40…Rd2! Forcing the white rook to budge after which the d-pawn has free passage. 41.Ra5 41.Rd3 Rxd3 42.exd3 Kf6 and White ends up in zugzwang. 41…Rxe2 42.Rxa4 d5 43.Rd4 Rd2 Once more, kicking away the rook. 44.Rb4 d4 And now the rook and two pawns could do it all by themselves.

Daniel Fernandez in round 2

Shakhverdian holds

After missing his chance on move 17/18, things gradually went downhill for Arthur de Winter. William Shakhverdian kept afloat in one way or another, and in a raging time scramble it all ended in a draw, much to Arthur’s frustration. He is a very ambitious young guy!

William Shakhverdian

No worries for Max

Max Warmerdam took the lead today in his match with Daniel Dardha, and he claimed not to have suffered from any ‘psychological disadvantage’ as we suggested after yesterday’s game: ‘I’ve been able to put pressure on him in all games so far, and that I couldn’t win the first two games did not bother me. Sometimes you just have little to work with.’

We enter the game at move 24, a moment we talked about before:

‘Daniel had missed my previous move 23…Dd5-b3,’ Max said, ‘and now he had to be careful. On 24.Ra3 I have 24…Qb4.’ Maybe the most solid defence is 24.Qa3, but that is not a move you are happy to play as White.

Warmerdam agreed that on the next move, the pawn sacrifice 25.d5 might have been interesting: ‘I will be up a pawn, but his pieces are more active. This would certainly have remained within the margins.’

The only idea Black had to worry about for a bit appeared on move 28.

Here, Dardha played 28.Rf3? after which Black could slowly consolidate. More crucial would have been the exchange sacrifice 28.dxe6 gxf5 29.Bc4, said Warmerdam. ‘I heard it was about plus 1.5, but in practice this is not easy to play.’ Probably best here is 29…Qc1+ 30.Kh2 Qf4+ 31.Kg1 h6!, not worrying about the one check on f7 and eliminating any perpetuals. White has not enough compensation for the material.

Hummel surprises and joins the leaders in Open

Paul Hummel, a good club player, surpried everyone today in the Open with a fine game against Nick Maatman. The game was dead even all the way, but it became even better for Hummel when Maatman made a horrible mistake in a totally drawn pawn ending.

Maatman-Hummel

Instead of 52.Kf3 or even 52.Ke3, Maatman, perhaps frustrated with the inevitable draw, short-circuited with 52.Kg5?? when after 52…Ke5 53.Kg6 f4 Black’s king was much quicker than White’s. A quite tragic accident.

With this, Hummel is now on 3 out of 3, along with four other leaders: Luca Moroni, Barath Subramaniyam, Onno Elgersma and Eelke de Boer.

Two Nimzos

Yesterday both match games started with 1.e4 e5, today both started 1.d4 Nf6 and both went on with 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, the Nimzo-Indian. The difference is that Daniel Dardha looked visibly surprised by this opening from Max Warmerdam, taking his time already for 1…Nf6, and also for the next few moves, with puzzeled looks sidewards to the audience. Van Foreest played the line with 4.Qc2 while Warmerdam went for 4.Nf3.

Correction Day 1

Yesterday we wrote that Jan Lootsma forfeited against Evgeny Romanov on board 2 of the Open, but that was incorrect. Because the Dutch player was late, the game didn’t make it to the website, but it was a full game, won by the Russian GM who is currently playing under the Norwegian flag.

McShane ambitious

Luke McShane has just pushed his f-pawn in two moves which looks quite risky for Black. With White’s h-pawn already on h4 and White’s king yet uncastled, this position may become quite exciting.

Sharp lines

Today’s commentator GM Loek van Wely engaged the audience with some quite sharp lines in the game Van Foreest-McShane. He described McShane as a very clever and quite sophisticated player, while Van Foreest is of course also clever ‘but he does strange things sometimes, to shock his opponent.’ Thus, the kingside pawn push 9.h4!? was new to Van Wely, and the first thing that came to his mind was, ‘If you want to play there, then why not the pawn sac 9.g4 ? Maybe it was a slip of the wrist and Lucas took the wrong pawn?’ A few moves later, Van Wely did like White’s position after all. The direct 16.e4 looked good, and now McShane is feeling the weakness of his e6-pawn.

Second draw Warmerdam and Dardha

Max Warmerdam was building up a dangerous-looking attack against Daniel Dardha, but the latter defended carefully and on move 23 Warmerdam offered a draw. ‘I didn’t see a plan anymore,’ he said.

Loek van Wely had a few questions for the players in the commentary room.

Here White took 13.Bxe4 where 13.Be1 was also an idea, but ‘a bit

speculative,’ said Van Wely. After 13…dxe4 Max played for a ‘slow’ kingside attack with 14.Nxd7 Qxd7 15.f5. The question was whether White could have tried 14.Qb3 Nxe5 15.dxe5 and then push his e- and f-pawns. Dardha thought he could have got some counterplay here with 15…Qd3 but after e.g. 16.Rfe1! Bd5 17.Qa4 Qc4 18.Qc2 Black faces the same problems.

At the end of the game there was another question.

Here Warmerdam played the waiting move 23.a3 and offered a draw. ‘A move someone like Kasparov would never consider,’ said Van Wely. He suggested 23.Bb4+ to provoke 23…c5 and then again 24.Bc3 to improve White’s bishop.

Warmerdam said he didn’t really see anything constructive after 24…Kg8, for example 25.Rxh6 Bxf5!, and the engine confirms this is equal.

Still, you can’t escape the impression that Max could have got more out of these first two games. He had the initiative twice, but Daniel showed remarkable maturity with well-measured defence. And perhaps the young Belgian even has a psychological advantage in the match now.

McShane consolidates

Lucas van Foreest has failed to raid Luke McShane’s position. He still has some pressure and the bishop pair, but the Englishman has managed to exchange the queens, has his weaknesses quite well covered and is solid in the centre.

Upset on board 5: Beerdsen loses

Thomas Beerdsen lost today against a player with about 450 Elo less in the Open. The 17-year-old German Jakob Weihrauch simply played a very good game in a Richter/Rauzer Sicilian, fortifying his queenside castled king and then built up a devastating attack on the kingside.

Tough job for two top boards in Open

Both top grandmasters in the Open have a tough day today against 2100-players. Leandro Slagboom is, if anything, better in a rook + knight ending against Robert Hovhannisyan, and Osama Arabi also seems to be doing well against Evgeny Romanov; he is a pawn down, but with opposite-coloured bishops and active play for Arabi.

Young players do well

This is a good round for young players in the Open. Apart from Jakob Weihrauch (17) there is also the excellent draw by Osama Arabi (19) on board 2 against Evgeny Romanov, and by Loek van der Hagen (16) against English GM Daniel Fernandez. But that’s not all: Roger Labruyere (15) just drew in a rook ending against IM Nico Zwirs, and on board 1 Leandro Slagboom (16) just made a ‘plus draw’ against Robert Hovhannisyan.

Leandro Slagboom (left) and Robert Hovhannisyan at the end of the game

Strong play by Van Foreest

Lucas van Foreest looks on his way to a win after all. With some clever play with his two bishops he has been creating a kind of mating net for the black king; here, the white bishop on g6 is crucial. With the black rook on b1, Lucas now even wins a piece with a small trick. It just goes to show that Luke McShane is not the only one who can ‘milk’ an endgame to a win!

And of course McShane has resigned. ‘A tough day!’ sighed Luke McShane.

Today’s winner Lucas van Foreest on the left

Luke McShane was vandaag in de eerste ronde van de matches in het Hoogeveen Schaaktoernooi de enige die een vol punt boekte. In een variant die bekend staat als nogal saai, hield de Engelsman steeds een klein voordeeltje tegen Lucas van Foreest. Deze bezweek in de tijdnoodfase onder de druk door een fout te maken op zet 34, waarna een eindspel met vier torens snel gewonnen was voor McShane.

De eerste partij tussen Belgisch kampioen Daniel Dardha en Nederlands kampioen Max Warmerdam eindigde in remise. De Nederlander kreeg met zwart een voordeeltje, maar koos op zet 25 voor een afwikkeling die hem geen winstkansen meer gaf. Het idee waarmee hij voor de winst kan gaan was echter uiterst moeilijk te vinden als er geen computer-engine meeloopt.

In het Open toernooi waren er nauwelijks verrassingen te noteren. Alle favorieten wonnen, alleen Seth van der Vegt en de pas tienjarige Oscar Zecha behaalden eervolle remises tegen op papier veel sterkere spelers, respectievelijk Bhakti Kulkarni en Bram van den Berg.

Foto’s door Frans Peeters: hier.

Het Engelstalige liveblog van Peter Boel:

We’ve started!

Loek van Wely just opened the Open Group which counts no less than 92 players at the moment. The GM/tournament director expressed gladness that so many players have come to Hoogeveen again. ‘I can announce here that we have also arranged that the Hoogeveen Tournament will take place next year as well,’ he said, gaining him a round of applause.

Today the tournament has a top commentator: GM Ivan Sokolov, the coach of the winning Olympiad team of Uzbekistan. Van Wely himself will do the commentary tomorrow.

After the usual instructions by chief arbiter Frans Peeters, the round started almost on time. After that, there was unfortunately no time for Van Wely to cross-examine the four match players in his usual sharp way. But we will probably get enough of that in the coming days!

Open openings

Both match games have started with 1.e4 e5. The game McShane-Van Foreest is a Berliner, which won’t please the audience too much… but who knows the endgame (or maybe rather ‘queenless middlegame’) will bring us some surprises.

Dardha and Warmerdam are playing an Italian Game.

Too sharp?

Daniel Dardha is pushing on the queen’s wing. Commentator Ivan Sokolov was not very enthusiastic about the young Belgian’s idea in the following position:

Here Dardha played 13.b5 which by the way is Stockfish 15’s first choice. Sokolov: ‘But the knight is not good on c6; like in many Ruy Lopez variations it has to be moved. Now White is forcing the black knight to do what it wanted to do anyway.’ It looks like Black is getting a nice initiative on the kingside. White’s idea is probably 14.d4, but Dardha is waiting long with this.

Three pawns for Hovhannisyan

Robert Hovhannisyan, a productive member of the Armenian team that came second at this year’s Olympiad, looks like he’s going to start with a full point. The sharp Frisian player Jan Boersma sacrificed a pawn with Black, but during the course of the game it has become three, and this should be really too much.

Open results

Some of the nine highest boards in the Open, which are, by the way, being played on the first floor, have been decided quickly. You can’t beat Evgeny Romanov, whose opponent Jan Lootsma arrived too late and got forfeited. SS Kumar, Luca Moroni’s opponent, also arrived quitea bit too late, but the Italian GM proposed to share the lost time. As a consequence, he is now facing some tough resistance in a sharp position. GM Sipke Ernst and Thomas Beerdsen have also won. When Ernst won a pawn in the ending, Mark Bloem surrendered quickly. In a Najdorf in which Beerdsen opted for 6.h4, things were not so clear, but when Ten Ham blundered a piece it was immediately over.

An overview of the nine top boards of the Open

Miniatures for Mellema and Konings

Local player Andries Mellema also noted a quick win today, after Mick Godding’s queenside collapsed. It was over on move 20.

Frans Konings took one more move against Bert Uneken, but his victory looked quite pretty.

13.Rxf5! exf5 14.Ng5 O-O What else? 15.Qh5 h6 16.Nxf7! Rxf7

17.Bxh6! gxh6 If, e.g., 17…Na6, White plays 18.Dg6 Kf8 (otherwise mate on g7) 19.Dh7 and wins. 18.Qg6+ Kf8 19.Qxh6+ Kg8 Of course not 19… Rg7 20.Qh8+. 20.Re1 Nd7 21.Re7 1-0

McShane grinds away

Luke McShane is known for his ability to draw out endings for a long time. There are many developments in the Berlin Variation, as Sokolov pointed out, but the Englishman opted for Kramnik’s old main line. He was working with the threat e5-e6 for a while, and this push (with which Judit Polgar once won a great rapid game against Kasparov) came on move 21. However Lucas van Foreest is still keeping his position more or less intact for now.

Problems for Van Foreest

Lucas van Foreest looks to be losing in the tricky double-rook ending against Luke McShane. Probably things went wrong at the following moment:

Here, Lucas played 34…Rgg4?!, a move which does little at the moment. If he had played the other rook, 34…Rag4, probably the position would have been equal after e.g. 35.g3 h4! 36.gxh4 Rf4. Now, Luke is always one step ahead in the ending.

Sudden collapse Van Foreest after long pressure

Lucas van Foreest was glad he was still alive in the rook ending, but there he soon went wrong. He praised Luke McShane’s play, keeping the pressure, and had been pessimistic for a large part of the game. ‘I committed some inaccuracies, and Luke played a few moves I hadn’t seen. Surprisingly I was still more or less OK. But I blundered 35.f3′, the Dutchman said. Better would have been 34…Rag4, as said before, but McShane had planned 35.g3 h4 36.Re3 ‘when I still have something, I think’. The engines say Black is OK, but in a practical game, under constant pressure, things are quite different.

‘Good luck tomorrow,’ Lucas said to Luke when he left. That may promise some firework when Lucas has White…

Dardha looks on his way to a draw

It seems that Max Warmerdam has spoilt his advantage. Right after his nice combination, he probably went wrong:

Here, Warmerdam played the surprising and probably not so good 25…Nd4 which ‘just draws’, said Sokolov, after 26.Rxc7 Nxb5 27.Rxb7 Bxe3 28.Rxb5 and Black has nothing. Probably better was simply 25…dxe5, when after 26.Rxc7 Rf6! Black has a dangerous initiative, e.g. 27.Bxa7 (otherwise 27…Raf8) 28…Rxa7 28.b6 Ra2 29.Nc3 (29.Rxb7 Ng5! is painful!) 29…Ra3 and White can’t take on b7 and still has some problems.

Sokolov suggested 25…Bxe3 26.fxe3 Ng5, but then White also seems to draw even with 27.Rxf8+ Rxf8 28.Nd2. If 26…Nxe5, Black still has something after 27.Rxf8+ Rxf8 28.Rxc7 Rf3+, but not very much.

Warmerdam has managed to win a pawn in the bishop vs rook ending, but with all the pawns on one side, and the bishop of the wrong colour, this looks like a draw. Probably Warmerdam just wants to torture his opponent a little longer.

Just two surprising draws

The first round in the Open shows a very regular list: all the favourite players won today. Only Seth van der Vegt held the strong Indian FM Bhakti Kulkarni to a draw with three pawns against a bishop. And Bram van den Berg kept trying but couldn’t win a rook vs knight + 2 pawns ending against the youngest player in the field: almost 11-year-old Oscar Zecha. He is the youngest but also one of the most talented!

Dardha and Warmerdam draw

Yes indeed, the game has ended in a draw. Warmerdam hadn’t seen how he could get something in the line with 25…dxe5 26.Rxc7 Rf6! 27.Bxa7. It was indeed hard to see — ’those are pure computer lines,’ Dardha commented. A good defensive performance by the Belgian, although he may have wanted to achieve more with White.

We’ve started!

Loek van Wely just opened the Open Group which counts no less than 92 players at the moment. The GM/tournament director expressed gladness that so many players have come to Hoogeveen again. ‘I can announce here that we have also arranged that the Hoogeveen Tournament will take place next year as well,’ he said, gaining him a round of applause.

Today the tournament has a top commentator: GM Ivan Sokolov, the coach of the winning Olympiad team of Uzbekistan. Van Wely himself will do the commentary tomorrow.

After the usual instructions by chief arbiter Frans Peeters, the round started almost on time. After that, there was unfortunately no time for Van Wely to cross-examine the four match players in his usual sharp way. But we will probably get enough of that in the coming days!

Open openings

Both match games have started with 1.e4 e5. The game McShane-Van Foreest is a Berliner, which won’t please the audience too much… but who knows the endgame (or maybe rather ‘queenless middlegame’) will bring us some surprises.

Dardha and Warmerdam are playing an Italian Game.

Too sharp?

Daniel Dardha is pushing on the queen’s wing. Commentator Ivan Sokolov was not very enthusiastic about the young Belgian’s idea in the following position:

Here Dardha played 13.b5 which by the way is Stockfish 15’s first choice. Sokolov: ‘But the knight is not good on c6; like in many Ruy Lopez variations it has to be moved. Now White is forcing the black knight to do what it wanted to do anyway.’ It looks like Black is getting a nice initiative on the kingside. White’s idea is probably 14.d4, but Dardha is waiting long with this.

Three pawns for Hovhannisyan

Robert Hovhannisyan, a productive member of the Armenian team that came second at this year’s Olympiad, looks like he’s going to start with a full point. The sharp Frisian player Jan Boersma sacrificed a pawn with Black, but during the course of the game it has become three, and this should be really too much.

Open results

Some of the nine highest boards in the Open, which are, by the way, being played on the first floor, have been decided quickly. You can’t beat Evgeny Romanov, whose opponent Jan Lootsma arrived too late and got forfeited. SS Kumar, Luca Moroni’s opponent, also arrived quitea bit too late, but the Italian GM proposed to share the lost time. As a consequence, he is now facing some tough resistance in a sharp position. GM Sipke Ernst and Thomas Beerdsen have also won. When Ernst won a pawn in the ending, Mark Bloem surrendered quickly. In a Najdorf in which Beerdsen opted for 6.h4, things were not so clear, but when Ten Ham blundered a piece it was immediately over.

An overview of the nine top boards of the Open

Miniatures for Mellema and Konings

Local player Andries Mellema also noted a quick win today, after Mick Godding’s queenside collapsed. It was over on move 20.

Frans Konings took one more move against Bert Uneken, but his victory looked quite pretty.

13.Rxf5! exf5 14.Ng5 O-O What else? 15.Qh5 h6 16.Nxf7! Rxf7

17.Bxh6! gxh6 If, e.g., 17…Na6, White plays 18.Dg6 Kf8 (otherwise mate on g7) 19.Dh7 and wins. 18.Qg6+ Kf8 19.Qxh6+ Kg8 Of course not 19… Rg7 20.Qh8+. 20.Re1 Nd7 21.Re7 1-0

McShane grinds away

Luke McShane is known for his ability to draw out endings for a long time. There are many developments in the Berlin Variation, as Sokolov pointed out, but the Englishman opted for Kramnik’s old main line. He was working with the threat e5-e6 for a while, and this push (with which Judit Polgar once won a great rapid game against Kasparov) came on move 21. However Lucas van Foreest is still keeping his position more or less intact for now.

Problems for Van Foreest

Lucas van Foreest looks to be losing in the tricky double-rook ending against Luke McShane. Probably things went wrong at the following moment:

Here, Lucas played 34…Rgg4?!, a move which does little at the moment. If he had played the other rook, 34…Rag4, probably the position would have been equal after e.g. 35.g3 h4! 36.gxh4 Rf4. Now, Luke is always one step ahead in the ending.

Sudden collapse Van Foreest after long pressure

Lucas van Foreest was glad he was still alive in the rook ending, but there he soon went wrong. He praised Luke McShane’s play, keeping the pressure, and had been pessimistic for a large part of the game. ‘I committed some inaccuracies, and Luke played a few moves I hadn’t seen. Surprisingly I was still more or less OK. But I blundered 35.f3′, the Dutchman said. Better would have been 34…Rag4, as said before, but McShane had planned 35.g3 h4 36.Re3 ‘when I still have something, I think’. The engines say Black is OK, but in a practical game, under constant pressure, things are quite different.

‘Good luck tomorrow,’ Lucas said to Luke when he left. That may promise some firework when Lucas has White…

Dardha looks on his way to a draw

It seems that Max Warmerdam has spoilt his advantage. Right after his nice combination, he probably went wrong:

Here, Warmerdam played the surprising and probably not so good 25…Nd4 which ‘just draws’, said Sokolov, after 26.Rxc7 Nxb5 27.Rxb7 Bxe3 28.Rxb5 and Black has nothing. Probably better was simply 25…dxe5, when after 26.Rxc7 Rf6! Black has a dangerous initiative, e.g. 27.Bxa7 (otherwise 27…Raf8) 28…Rxa7 28.b6 Ra2 29.Nc3 (29.Rxb7 Ng5! is painful!) 29…Ra3 and White can’t take on b7 and still has some problems.

Sokolov suggested 25…Bxe3 26.fxe3 Ng5, but then White also seems to draw even with 27.Rxf8+ Rxf8 28.Nd2. If 26…Nxe5, Black still has something after 27.Rxf8+ Rxf8 28.Rxc7 Rf3+, but not very much.

Warmerdam has managed to win a pawn in the bishop vs rook ending, but with all the pawns on one side, and the bishop of the wrong colour, this looks like a draw. Probably Warmerdam just wants to torture his opponent a little longer.

Just two surprising draws

The first round in the Open shows a very regular list: all the favourite players won today. Only Seth van der Vegt held the strong Indian FM Bhakti Kulkarni to a draw with three pawns against a bishop. And Bram van den Berg kept trying but couldn’t win a rook vs knight + 2 pawns ending against the youngest player in the field: almost 11-year-old Oscar Zecha. He is the youngest but also one of the most talented!

Dardha and Warmerdam draw

Yes indeed, the game has ended in a draw. Warmerdam hadn’t seen how he could get something in the line with 25…dxe5 26.Rxc7 Rf6! 27.Bxa7. It was indeed hard to see — ’those are pure computer lines,’ Dardha commented. A good defensive performance by the Belgian, although he may have wanted to achieve more with White.