At the closing ceremony of the 19th Hoogeveen Chess Tournament, tournament director Loek spoke of a wonderful, sporting event. ‘We are soon going to work on next year’s edition, to make a wonderful jubilee edition of it. And we, the tournament board, are always open for tips and ideas to liven up our event.’
Hoogeveen alderman Erik Giethoorn spoke in English, as there were many foreign players at the ceremony. ‘We are very proud that three weeks ago we were awarded the Sports City of the Year in the Netherlands’, he said, ‘and this chess festival is a good example of what we can do here. The 19th edition was a close call, as our main sponsor had lost interest. We’ve had to work hard to get things done. I’d like to thank all the volunteers, the members of the tournament board, and the municipality staff. We were very pleased to be your host, and we hope to welcome you again next year, to make the 20th edition an unforgettable one.’
Nest, the alderman presented the prizes to the seven top players in Amateur group 1: Ruurd Kunnen, Peter de Korver, Jan Lootsma, Dick Stavast, Lisanne Waardenburg, Ben van den Bergh and the winner, Sander Taams. The rating prize went to the pleasantly surprised Arjan Mulder.
The rating prize in the Open group went to Peter Hulshof, and then the other prize winners were honoured: from place 13 to place 1: Thomas Beerdsen, Jan-Christian Schroeder, Alexander Shabalov, Sipke Ernst, Roeland Pruijssers, Neelotpal Das, Antonios Pavlidis, Vishnu Prasanna, Erwin l’Ami, Jan Werle, Benjamin Bok, Deep Sengupta and the winner, Abhijeet Gupta. Bok also received a special prize: the book ‘Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess’ by Ivan Sokolov, because he ‘had almost made it’ in the last round, and because this book contains a good life lesson.
Sopiko Guramishvili, the clear winner of the ‘ladies’ match’ (Van Wely: ‘Sometimes top chess can be a bloodbath’), was presented with a beautiful chess painting from the chess art shop Schaakkunst, and Jan Timman, the winner of the ‘gentlemen’s match’ with Jorden van Foreest, also received such a prize.
Timman said that he had been very glad to have been invited again, despite last year’s defeat against Baadur Jobava. ‘I’ve entered battle with youth, and of course I am satisfied with the result (a 3½-2½ win). But it was very interesting, and I think that Jorden has a great future. It was also a good thing that the Open tournament had such a strong field, despite the limited finances. I’ve often walked there to have a look, and I am already looking forward to the twentieth tournament.’
And so an option was already taken on Timman’s participation next year. Van Wely also dropped the name of Magnus Carlsen, in order to stir up the audience a bit.
Tournament board member Sytze Faber ‘put out the lights’ of this 19th edition. He thanked the municipality of Hoogeveen, ‘who have coughed up quite some money for this tournament’, the Province of Drenthe, who contributed substantially to the event for the first time, and Alle Peereboom of McDonalds, as well as the other sponsors. ‘Whoever heard mayor Karel Loohuis speak during the opening of this tournament, cannot but have faith that we will be able to carry on on this path. We’re already starting the preparatory talks for the 2016 tournament next week. We thank all the people who have made this tournament possible, and I’m already looking forward to the third edition with Loek van Wely as a tournament director.’
So – until next year!
