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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…
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Ladies’ Day
Today it was Ladies’ Day. Although they were placed high in the rankings, our female participants scored 2.5 points in the Open. Hungarian Anna Rudolf, who had won the day prize for the most beautiful game in round 4, got no more than a draw against grandmaster Malaniuk, but of…
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Volgas and exchanges
The sixth round started promising. Your correspondent counted no less than four, maybe five Volga Gambits, as well as two early exchange sacrifices. But the real fireworks failed to occur. Because the leaders Victor Mikhalevski and Andrey Vovk agreed a fairly quick draw, the winner of the duel on board…
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Beliavsky misses his chance
After a highly bizarre game, Victor Mikhalevski defeated Alexander Beliavsky on the top board this morning. The former elite player deserved more in this game, but after move 20 things got completely out of hand. The Israeli grandmaster thankfully accepted the present and now shares the lead with Andrey Vovk,…
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An uphill struggle
It’s starting to get a little frustrating for both Jan Timman and Alexey Shirov. To every problem they create, their opponents find a solution. Today both had White and both obtained an advantage, but it turned out to be not enough. Two endgames came on the board that had a…
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Grandmasterly violence
The grandmasters still rule in the Open. Almost all of them can be found in the top end of the list. It’s nice to see veteran grandmaster Beliavsky doing so well. Today he completely overplayed his young colleague Bartlomiej Heberla. We can recognize a pattern: he who wins the daily…
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Perfect preparation Giri, Timman blunders
Invite the right players and you’ll be amazed at what can happen in two games in one day. What happened today in the Univé matches defies all description. Let’s try anyway. With incredibly deep preparation Anish Giri laid the foundation for a second victory in an epic game. Jan Timman…
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Sharp play Vovk not rewarded
Every day the number one rated in the Open, Andrey Vovk, plays games that are well worth looking at. Today, in the third round, that didn’t yield him a point, however. The Canadian master Aman Hambleton, who performs surprisingly well so far, managed to scrape a half point after a…
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De Ruiter strikes again
In the second round of the Open, the six top grandmasters won according to plan. But on board 7 history repeated itself: class player Danny de Ruiter pulled off a stunt just like two years ago here. Also notable was that Sergey Kasparov wasn’t able to score more than a…
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First try for Giri
At two in the afternoon it started. Former chairman of the Dutch House of Commons, Dick Dolman, made the first move on both boards of the matches in the Glass Room of the town hall. And the four matadors immediately went for it. Timman and Jobava played a highly interesting…
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The horseman and the horses
Chairman Bert van der Haar of the Stichting Schaaktoernooi Noord-Oost Nederland (Foundation for Chess Tournament North-East Netherlands) was really chuffed. Jetta Klijnsma, Dutch State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment, had returned to his city to open the proud Univé Chess Tournament. ‘We were born in almost the same street’,…
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No Strange things
The first round of the Univé Open was quite hectic. Overall the tournament is quite strong, and the grandmasters didn’t exactly have an easy time. Especially a couple of talented German youngsters made their life miserable. The Czech Jiri Stocek didn’t get more than a draw against the tenacious defence…
