Jorden van Foreest (30 April 1999)
Jorden was the European U-14 Champion in 2013, and conquered the grandmaster title already in 2015. The 2nd great-grandson of the former Dutch champions Dirk and Arnold van Foreest won the Dutch title himself in 2016. After narrow defeats against Jan Timman and Ivan Sokolov, Jorden won his first match in Hoogeveen last year, after a playoff against Adhiban Baskaran. In the Germany Bundesliga he crushed top players like Baadur Jobava, Andrei Volokitin and Ernesto Inarkiev. At the World Junior Championship in Tarvisio he came shared 4th, and in June he came clear first at the HSG Open. Jorden has made another big step forward, and it will be interesting to see how he will fare against the new heavyweight player Vladimir Fedoseev.
Vladimir Fedoseev (16 February 1995)
In recent years he invariably ended on one of the top places in strong tournaments. Vladimir Fedoseev’s first great victory was winning the illustrious Aeroflot Open in Moscow, in 2017. Later that year he came second in the Dortmund super-tournament, and shared first in the European Championship in Minsk (third on tiebreak). Fedoseev is known for his thorough preparation and his fantastic, original discoveries. His optimism behind the board may have stood in the way of even greater successes so far. But the young Russian is on the verge of claiming his place in the world chess elite, and we will surely see and hear a lot from him in the coming years.
Peter Svidler (17 June 1976)
Leningrad-born Svidler has been playing in the world top since the 1990s, and he is also involved in a kind of competition with our tournament director Loek van Wely: both are 8-time champions of their countries. Only Svidler’s country is the chess superpower Russia! Among his many tournament successes, his victory in the 2011 World Cup stands out. Besides a top chess player, Svidler is also a lover of culture and cricket. He speaks better English than many a native speaker, and if he doesn’t compete in a top tournament then chess fans will be hanging onto his every word during his commentary sessions. The experienced and amiable Russian is taking on an upcoming young American – just like Boris Spassky did 46 years ago against Bobby Fischer!
Sam Shankland (1 October 1991)
Shankland, who just turned 27, surprised friend and foe earlier this year by conquering the American national title ahead of the world top players Fabiano Caruana (Magnus Carlsen’s challenger), Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura, with a fantastic 8½/11 score and attractive attacking play. Still, this result didn’t appear out of the blue. In 2008 Shankland already shared first prize in the U-18 World Championship, on his 19th he was awarded the grandmaster title, and in 2011 he came third in the American Championship. He won various open tournaments, and won the gold medal as the reserve player for the USA at the Tromsø Olympiad in 2014. But so far 2018 has been Shankland’s definitive breakthrough year, and so we are quite curious how he will fare against a seasoned lion like Peter Svidler.
