At nine o'clock sharp, chief arbiter Frans Peeters started the early round of today. So round 3 is under way, with most of the boards already taken. Round 4 will start at 15.00 this afternoon, while the 2 match games will begin at the regular time: 14.00 h.
Pieter Verhoef from Arnhem is about to punish a wrong treatment of the Caro-Kann by Daniel Kutchoukov.
Verhoef-Kutchoukov
12.Bf4
Threatening something nasty on f7.
12...Ndf6?
He probably should have gone for the lesser evil with 12...Nxe5.
13.Nf5!
Why wait? Of course the knight cannot be taken due to 14.Nxc6+.
13...Bf8
And now Pieter is probably contemplating 14.Nc4 and putting something on d6.
Young Indian talent Rakshitta Ravi is in trouble. Against Russian WIM Elena Tomilova she lost the exchange due to a simple but still rather nice trick:
Rakshitta-Tomilova
18...Bxe2! 19.Qxe2 Nd4 20.Qd2 Rxc3
Winning the exchange due to the fork on e2. Rakshitta played 21.Qxd4 and is floundering on.
Rakshitta Ravi
... early in the game between Yannick Husers and mega-talent Machteld van Foreest.
Husers-Van Foreest
Here Machteld played the correct 10...Nf2+! 11.Rxf2 Bxf2 12.Qxf2 fxe5 13.d3
But now:
13...Df6?
The strong follow-up was 13...Nc6! and Black wins a piece back; White can't put anything on e3 on account of the 14...d4 fork.
Here Yannick thought for some time while Machteld was cruising through the playing hall as usual. Then he took his bishop and with some force plunged it...
14.Bf4?
Arthur Maters and Kevin Brands, playing on the board next to Husers and Van Foreest, were looking at the neighbouring board for several long seconds in amazement before continuing their own game. After a while Machteld came back and played 14...exf4. Now 15.Nxd5 was much less strong than it would have been one move earlier, when it would have been very good for White!: 14.Nxd5 Qf7 15.h3! Bxf3 16.Qxf3 Qxf3 17.Bxf3 Rxf3 18.Nxc7 Rf8 19.Nxa8 Rc8 when in the end White remains a healthy pawn up. Instead, Husers is now an exchange behind for a pawn, but we have no doubt that this game will see more crazy developments.
This is not Yannick Husers
The first actual result of the day (earlier William Shakhverdian and Max van de Pavoordt settled for a quick draw) was in favour of Bas de Boer, who convincingly beat Belgian FM Roel Hamblok. De Boer won a piece and then, instead of defending it, crashed through on the kingside.
Evgeny Romanov seems to be heading for a win against Thomas Beerdsen, the Dutch IM who made it to the finals last year. Romanov built a strong centre and after Beerdsen opened the kingside with 20...f5, tactical opportunities started to appear not for him but for the Russian GM. Now an exchange is lost on f8.
Nico Zwirs from Apeldoorn, who already has 2 IM-norms in his pocket, seems to be in good shape again. Today he won an elegant game against Dries Wedda. But there was big hole in it!
Zwirs-Wedda
This looks pretty chaotic, but White's attack comes much earlier:
30.Qxh6+?!?
As Nico explained, winning was 30.g6 fxg6 31.Qxh6+ Bxh6 32.Rxh6+ Qh7 33.Rxh7+ Kxh7 34.Rh1#.
30...Bxh6 31.Rxh6+ Kg8 32.Rdh1??
In view of Black's possibility on move 34, here White should have opted for 32.Rg6+! Kf8 33.Bxd6+ Qxd6 34.Rh6!!. With this silent move White forces 34...Kg8 and wins after 35.Bxf7+ Kxf7 36.Rxd6 with his strong pawns.
32...Qxc2+ 33.Ka1 Re1+ 34.Rxe1
34...Nd1??
34...Nc4! covers the crucial pawn on d6. After 35.Bxf7+ Kf8 there is no check with the Bf4-bishop anymore.
Now White has a pretty finish:
35.Bxf7+! Kf8
35...Kxf7 36.Re7+ Kg8 37.Rg7+ is mate next move.
36.Bxd6+ 1-0
It's mate in two again after 36...Kxf7. Olé!
Dmitry Kryakvin is the first GM who yields a draw in this tournament. Van Delft got a good position with black, but the game petered out into a drawn rook ending.
Eelke de Boer resigned early against Indian IM Shyaamnikhil. Perhaps he could have played on a bit, but he must have been fed up with his unpleasant position.
17-year-old German FM Valentin Buckels just won after Serbian WIM Mila Zarkovic went wrong in an extremely sneaky position:
Zarkovic-Buckels
Here, 32.Nd4? was not possible due to 32...d5!, but White could have played a trick herself with 32.Rxc5! dxc5 33.Ne7+, which is almost equal. Instead, 32.Qc3? was immediately losing after 32...Rxc6.
Two Indian players were quite unfortunate this morning. First, IM P Iniyan thought, in a winning position, that he had a strong zwischenzug against Erik Sparenberg:
Iniyan-Sparenberg
Here White played 30.Nd5, where 30.Qxb1 would have won. The game move allowed 30...Qe1+ 31.Kg2 and now the long diagonal is blocked too: 31...Be4+ 32.Rf3 Bxf3+ 33.Kxf3... while the other one is opened!: 33...e4+ 0-1.
His countryman P Karthikeyan was very close to a draw against Gadir Guseinov.
Karthikeyan-Guseinov
What could possibly go wrong here for White? Well...
39.Bd6??
39.Qe4 was a draw.
39...Bg1+ 40.Kg3 Qe1+ 41.Kf3 Qf2+ 42.Ke4 Qd4+ 43.Kf3 Qd3+
And White resigned. Some guys need very little material to give mate!
