In his capacity of chairman of the board of the Hoogeveen Chess Tournament, Bert van der Haar welcomed two mayors – the current one, Karel Loohuis, and the former one, Sytze Faber, who was one of the originators of the event in 1997. He also welcomed chairwoman Marleen van Amerongen of the Dutch Chess Federation KNSB. Van der Haar and associates have turned Hoogeveen into a real chess city, and even took the initiative to provide all the primary schools in the environment with a large chess set for outside. ,,We spent 2½ days to bring all the boards and pieces, but now I have seen all the 26 primary schools around Hoogeveen.” The official opening of this project took place yesterday at De Regenboog school in Hoogeveen. “For the future I hope that we will be able to present the concept of Chess City Hoogeveen with even more enthusiasm.”
Mayor Karel Loohuis stressed that the Hoogeveen municipality absolutely realizes the importance of the concept of Chess City Hoogeveen. “In the Netherlands this is the second chess event in size and in quality, and a growing number of people in Hoogeveen is very proud of that. It’s also quite special that this is the only tournament in the world that is held in a city hall. That takes some effort, but we do this gladly.” Loohuis said that chess is sometimes underestimated, but “you do not need good brains only, physically you have to be in good shape too. And if you keep training your brains always, then you will benefit greatly from it.”
Loohuis remembered that not so long ago a boy called Magnus Carlsen also played in Hoogeveen, “and hopefully we have such future top players this year.” Hoogeveen wants to become the most child-friendly municipality in the Netherlands, “and an event like this certainly fits into that picture,” said the mayor, referring to the Grand Prix youth tournament that had just been completed, led by Daniela Mikkers, but also to tge many young participants in the Open tournament and even in the Matches. “We want to go very far to keep this event. I wish you a good tournament, and may the best player win.”
KNSB chairwoman Marleen van Amerongen said that the Hoogeveen Chess tournament agrees excellently with the plans of the national chess federation to bring chess to children and to schools. “Last year there were 10 participants in the Grand Prix, today there were 60. If it goes on like this...” Van Amerongen thanked tournament director Loek van Wely for putting so much effort in the popularization of chess as an eight-time Dutch champion and a top grandmaster. She devoted some words in English to the four match players who were present: “Alireza Firouzja has already achieved an Elo rating of 2700 at 16 – that’s really incredible.” She assumed that the Iranian would have a tough opponent in Jorge Cori from Peru, “because he has been a top 100-player for many years.” Also, Van Amerongen was delighted with the fact that the other match had a female participant, Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazachstan: “You already have three grandmaster norms but for the title you need some more Elo points. Jan Timman is a nice man, but I don’t know if he will give them to you.” She praised Timman himself as “a legend, and also a great promoter of chess.”
After this, board member Iozefina Paulet of the KNSB gave presents to the organizer of the Grand Prix youth event, Daniela Mikkers (“she’s done a great job with her team which is also very important for us as a federation”) and to tournament secretary Jeroen Bottema, who has also started a plan for giving chess lessons in schools: “KNSB wants to help, and we have opened the account ‘Schaakmatties’ (= “Chess Mates”), where kids can play online in a safe environment. We want to become the biggest chess club in the world!” She also memorized the visit of chess pupils from Uganda, accompanied by Christine Namaganda, which was a highly successful initiative: “It’s great to see you working for the chess world here.”
Tournament director Loek van Wely introduced a true world champion to the audience: draughts World Champion Aleksandr Georgiev, who plays in our Amateur group II (the morning group). When asked, Georgiev, who assesses himself as a 1700 Elo but was estimated 2300 by his ‘coach’ Vasily Ivanchuk, said that the difference between a chess tournament and a draughts tournament is not so big: “Their behaviour is also quite similar.” He won his first chess game this morning.
Van Wely ging met Marleen van Amerongen over tot de loting. Eerst riep hij Zhansaya Abdumalik op het podium, die al drie dagen met haar moeder in Amsterdam had doorgebracht: “Het was geweldig,” zei Zhansaya. Over haar tegenstander Jan Timman zei ze: “Hij is een schaaklegende. Het is voor mij een grote eer om tegen zo’n sterke speler te spelen, en een goede ervaring. Ik hoop op een stel interessante partijen en ga genieten van deze match.”
Timman already plays his third match here, and he informed Van Wely, with whom he had crossed swords (on and off the chessboard...) for two decades, that he is older than all three other match players together. Still, he didn’t want to lean on his experience only: “I also want to find new ideas.” Both players picked up a statuette of the famous ‘Hoogeveen drummer’. On a sticker at the bottom of Abdumalik’s statuette it said ‘White’ and so Timman gets Black in the first round.
Of the other two match players, grandmaster Jorge Cori Tello, the strongest player in Latin America, that he was “very glad with this opportunity, and very excited” for this rare match between a Peruvian and an Iranian. Alireza Firouzja had already met Van Wely. “That wasn’t very pleasant for me,” admitted the tournament director, “but Alireza is a very gifted boy.” Firouzja is in the Netherlands for the first time: “I’m very glad to be here, and look forward to six interesting games against a very strong player.” Firouzja got the first turn, and picked up a statuette of ‘Bartje’ (the main character of a famous Dutch book about country life in Drenthe from the previous century – though Loek van Wely couldn’t tell much more about him), and at the bottom it said ‘White’.
So the drawing of lots for the first round of the matches is as follows:
Abdumalik-Timman
Firouzja-Cori
