HOOGEVEEN - The 18th Univé Chess Tournament is approaching with great strides. The organization is in tiptop shape. Dutch State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment Jetta Klijnsma will open the event officially on Saturday 11th October, the afternoon Amateur group is fully booked, in the Open group a record amount of fifteen grandmasters take part, and the tournament has a new website.
The Univé Chess Tournament is breaking new ground this year. The four-player event in the Crown group has made way for two Univé Matches. Chess celebrity Jan Timman will play the inventive Baadur Jobava and Dutch top talent Anish Giri will face the attacking player Alexey Shirov. Tournament director Loek van Wely thinks these players are a guarantee for spectacle. ‘I’m expecting they will be out for blood’, he says with a big smile. ‘Certainly, Shirov and Timman are the underdogs, but it may well be that Giri and Jobava will get more than they bargained for.’ This year, Van Wely succeeded Jeroen van den Berg as the tournament director, and he is organizing the tournament with a completely new team. ‘It’s a tremendous challenge. The expectations are running high, but that’s what you get if you start high. I am glad, not only with the participants in the matches, but also with those in the Open group. This year we have a record number of fifteen grandmasters in the “Burgerzaal”. I know the tricks of the trade, and I know how you can bring many grandmasters to Hoogeveen for relatively little money.’ In total, 28 titled players take part in the Open tournament. Not only the open group enjoys great popularity. The afternoon Amateur group is now fully booked and has a ‘waiting list’.
Dutch State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment Jetta Klijnsma will open the tournament. Thus, Klijnsma joins a long list of dignitaries who considered it worthwhile to come to Hoogeveen and open the event. Fred Teeven, Jet Bussemaker and Bernard Wientjes preceded her in recent years. The people of Hoogeveen will be actively involved in the chess tournament on the opening day. In the morning there will be the traditional simultaneous display for youth players at McDonald’s, and from 13.00h Hans Böhm will give a simul before the ‘Hoofdstraatkerk’, where anybody can join. ‘It’s nice that everybody can be involved in this way’, says Van Wely. ‘During the tournament the audience can watch the big guys in person. Besides that, we have a number of good commentators who will explain what happens on the chessboards during the games.’ The commentators in the chess café will be Jop Delemarre, John van der Wiel, Cor van Wijgerden, Gert Ligterink and Tex de Wit. A good player who carries the title of Fide Master, De Wit is also a stand-up comedian who is associated with the Comedytrain collective.
Those who follow the tournament behind their computer will also be offered a few extras this year. The Chess24 website will provide commentaries to the games, and the heartbeat of the participants in the Univé Matches will be visualized. Van Wely: ‘This way we can all see when the players experience tension. This is a new feature. It shows that Hoogeveen is an innovative tournament.’
