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Contingency abounds
We are not halfway through the matches yet. Anything can still happen. But just like her husband Anish Giri last year against Alexey Shirov, Sopiko Guramishvili has struck mercilessly in the first two days. The struggle between Jorden van Foreest and Jan Timman is still balanced, but today too, the…
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Vishnu seizes his chance
Because the three leaders drew their games (the rivals Sengupta and l’Ami with each other, and Debashis against Benjamin Bok), Vishnu Prasanna became the co-leader with an outstanding victory over Jaan Ehlvest, who doesn’t have an easy time in this tournament so far. The Indian player, now also on 3½…
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Wildwest in the Matches
Today the two matches started with rockets and thunder strokes. Anna-Maja Kazarian tried too hard after the opening and went down tactically. The struggle between Jorden van Foreest and Jan Timman went heavily up and down. First Van Foreest seemed to be cruising to a win, but later it was…
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Grandmasters in trouble
Today’s biggest surprise in the Open was the defeat of the top-seed, Abhijeet Gupta, against his fellow countryman Ankit Rajpara. And with white, too – Gupta went down in a sideline of the Queen’s Gambit gone wrong. With the Dutch contingent things went better; Erwin l’Ami and Benjamin Bok won…
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Quite a push
Chairman Bert van der Haar of the tournament committee welcomed the visitors, especially the representative Ard van der Tuuk of the province of Drenthe and mayor Karel Loohuis of Hoogeveen. Van der Haar said that the continuation of the tournament had been under some pressure after Univé stopped as the…
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But was it that easy? Erwin l’Ami, the Dutch number one in this tournament, explained his game at the end of the commentator’s session of Joris Brenninkmeijer, and actually it had been less smoothed than it seemed.A pure Benoni, you don’t come across that too often nowadays’, said L’Ami.According to…
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Side Events
The 19th Hoogeveen Chess Tournament, which takes place from 17-24 October in the Hoogeveen town hall, includes a great number of attractive side events this year. Various alternative chess variants will be experimented with, there is a simultaneous exhibition by one of the match players, Sopiko Guramishvili, and every day…
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Hoogeveen also popular with Indian top players
Four grandmasters and two international masters from India, the country where chess has seen a terrific surge since Vishy Anand’s successes, will be present in the Hoogeveen Open. The player with the highest rating (also of the entire tournament) is Abhijeet Gupta. The former world youth champion (2008) has grown…
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Illustrious chess duo Ehlvest and Shabalov in Hoogeveen
The Hoogeveen Open has managed to attract two American chess aces: Jaan Ehlvest and Alexander Shabalov. Jaan Ehlvest (1962), of Estonian origin, was youth champion of the USSR in 1980, and European youth champion in 1983. In 1988 he made it to the Candidates’ Matches, where he lost to Artur…
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Strong contingent of Dutch players in Hoogeveen
he Dutch field of participants in the Hoogeveen Open will be led by a quartet of active grandmasters: Erwin l’Ami, Benjamin Bok, Sipke Ernst en Jan Werle. Two-time Dutch Open champion Erwin l’Ami won the Univé Open in 2012 and is a contender in any tournament, as we saw earlier…
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Sopiko Guramishvili and Anna-Maja Kazarian play chess match in Hoogeveen
The second match in the Hoogeveen Chess Tournament will be played between two talented young female players: Sopiko Guramishvili and Anna-Maja Kazarian. This match, with six games, takes place from 18-23 October in the town hall of Hoogeveen. With Anna-Maja Kazarian, besides Jorden van Foreest, a second Dutch top talent…
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Jan Timman and Jorden van Foreest play a match in the Hoogeveen Tournament
The main attraction of the chess tournament in Hoogeveen this year is a match between Jan Timman and Jorden van Foreest. The laurelled top grandmaster and the up-and-coming talent play six games between October 17 and 24 in the town hall of Hoogeveen. Negotiations for a second match are being…
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Basque Chess on October 21
A new feature this year is a Basque tournament on the rest day, Wednesday 21th October: a form of chess that originated in the Basque city of San Sebastian: with each duel the opponents play each other on two boards simultaneously, once with white and once with black. This is…
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Respect
Tex de Wit, a comedian and a chess commentator, presented the closing ceremony smoothly. His first ‘guest’ was alderman Gert Vos of Hoogeveen, who had been impressed throughout the week by the ‘noble spirit’ of chess: ‘I’ve played soccer and volleyball, but there’s always noise there. A chess tournament has…
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Giri and Jobava strike one more time
In the final match games, both losing sides received one more heavy blow. Jan Timman once again couldn’t cope with Baadur Jobava’s experimental play, and Alexey Shirov was again ‘plugged’ by Anish Giri. Giri – Shirov 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6…
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Mikhalevski wins Open
After beating Beliavsky, Victor Mikhalevski was always high up in the ranks of the Open. But before the last round he was only one of three leaders. When his friend Michael Roiz quickly drew with Beliavsky, Mikhalevski was almost there, since he himself won quickly against Sopiko Guramishvili. It just…
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The Dilemma
The match is approaching the end and you are trailing. What do you do? Play carefully and try to limit the damage, or bang your head against the wall one more time? That was the dilemma both Alexey Shirov and Jan Timman were facing today. Their solutions differed. After…
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Imperturbable
While around him everything is being drawn, he remains imperturbable, in total concentration, behind the board. The Netherlands is perhaps Alexander Beliavsky’s favourite chess country, because here he has had some of his greatest successes: Tilburg 1986 and 1991, OHRA, Hoogovens. We don’t know if this is the reason, but…
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Winners daily prizes Open group
Winners daily prizes Open group (bold = winner) 1. Lucas van Foreest – Francis Lesmann 2. Michael Wunnink – Andrey Vovk Danny de Ruiter – Vladimir Malaniuk (aanmoedigingsprijs) 3. Bartlomiej Heberla – Danny de Ruiter 4. Anna Rudolf – Ron Hoffman 5. Sopiko Guramishvili – Sipke Ernst…
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Square h3
Again two draws, and again they were certainly not boring. This time the ‘runners-up’ Jan Timman and Alexey Shirov were in a considerably better mood when they left the playing hall than two days ago. Timman had quickly obtained an advantage with black and forced Jobava to defend himself with…
