Report round 8 Open Group

Good afternoon!

We've started today with the semi-finals of the Open and the Basque Chess match between Wei Yi and Adhiban Baskaran in the Marriage Room, and the rest of the Open in the big playing hall.

The semifinals both started with a Ruy Lopez.

Dmitrij Kollars (left) and Dinara Saduakassova in the semifinals.

The Basque Chess games aren't very exciting yet, though they are drawing quite a few spectators. The Chat Chess game between Timman and Van Wely in Assen was a quite spectacular draw. Here it is:

Timman-Van Wely

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3 dxc4 5.Bg2 a6 6.O-O b5 7.Ne5 Nd5 8.e4 Nf6 9.Nc3 Bb7 10.d5 Bd6 11.Bf4 O-O

12.Nxf7 Kxf7 13.dxe6+ Kxe6 14.Bh3+ Kf7 15.e5 Bxe5 16.Qxd8 Rxd8 17.Bxe5 Nc6 18.Bxc7 Rd2 19.Rfe1 Nd4 20.Bg2 Bxg2 21.Kxg2 Rxb2 22.Rad1 Ne6 23.Be5 Ng4 24.h3

24...Rxf2+ 25.Kg1 Nxe5 26.Rxe5 Rf3 27.Ne4 Rd3 28.Rf1+ Ke7 29.Nc5 Kd6 30.Nxd3 cxd3 31.Re3 Nc5 32.Rf4 Kc6 33.Rd4 Ra7 34.Kf2 a5 35.Re8 Rc7 36.Re5 b4 37.Ke3 Kb5 38.Rxd3 a4 39.Rd4 a3 40.Re8 Rb7 41.Rc8 b3 42.axb3 a2 43.Ra8 Nxb3 44.Rda4 a1=Q 45.Rxa1 Nxa1 46.Rxa1 Kc5 1/2-1/2

Wei Yi has won his white game in the Basque match with Adhiban. The Indian GM's knight got stuck on the rim, which was indeed quite dim for him. The knight got caught and the game was lost. The other game was a quite uneventful draw. A short break - and we're off again!

In the meantime we'll show you a nice picture of two chess-playing ladies.

A beautiful trick just came on the board in the game Sybolt Strating-Bas de Boer.

Black has aimed his pieces menacingly at g2. White could have defended everything with the cool 21.Qxd5. Strating played the equally cool

21.Rf2

but now Black has a wonderful trick:

21...Nf3+!!

Just let it sink in for a while (as Strating did) and you'll see that Black is winning in all lines.

Adhiban has just won his white game in the Basque vs Wei Yi in nice attacking style.

Xu Xiangyu and Sipke Ernst have made a pretty quick draw - they'll have to work hard tomorrow if they want to win a prize in the Open.

Xu Xiangyu

The second Basque game of the second round was also won by Adhiban in a long endgame with opposite-coloured bishops where the Indian GM had two extra pawns. So after leading Wei Yi went down in the end with 1½-2½.

'It was really crazy', Adhiban said. 'With this Basque Chess you get stuck in one game and you forget about the other. My second white game was crushing, in the black game I was somewhat worse but he may have underestimated my counterplay. Then he blundered that pawn on a3, and then lost another. Maybe the endgame was a draw, but it's very difficult to hold with so little time if I just keep playing around. There had to be a winner in this match, so I just kept playing.'

Adhiban Baskaran, the winner of the Basque Chess mini-match

For Wei Yi it was another disappointment. Probably the Chinese player was the most creative of the four this week, but it didn't bring him anything in the end.

The young German player Valentin Buckels, whom we have been seeing here for several years already, made a good attempt to join the leaders in the Open with an attacking win over IM Casper Schoppen, who seemed to have landed in the wrong opening.

Buckels-Schoppen

This position is already unpleasant for Black - maybe he should have tried 10...Ng6 here.

10...Bd6

Giving White more time!

11.h5 Bxe5 12.dxe5 N6d7 13.Qg3 f6 14.Nf3 Qe7 15.exf6 Qxf6 16.Ne5 Qe7

It's already hard to find a useful move for Black.

17.Nxd7 Nxd7 18.h6 g6

And it's over in a flash:

19.Bxg6 hxg6 20.Qxg6+ Kh8 21.Bd6!

The winning blow - even stronger than 21.Bg5.

21...Rg8 22.Qxg8+ Kxg8 23.Bxe7 1-0

Both semifinal games are captivating fights. In Pruijssers-Beerdsen, despite many tactical tricks along the way, the balance never seems to have been clearly broken.

Young IM Thomas Beerdsen, one of the most active players in the circuit

Dmitrij Kollars has had the upper hand all the time against Dinara Saduakassova. He missed a good chance to keep his grip with 30.Qe4!. After 30.Qxc7 Nd3 Saduakassova fought like a lion and reached a slightly worse rook ending - a pawn down but with active play.

Dinara taking a view from another angle

Today Stefan Kuipers brought the 'Vorentscheidung' of his game with Stefan Colijn on the board with a very nice combination:

Kuipers-Colijn

White obtained a winning advantage with the following nice combination:

17.Bxf6 gxf6 18.Rxd6! Qxd6 19.Ne4 Qe5 20.Qh6!

The beautiful point. Due to the threat of 21.Nxf6+ and mate Black has to give his queen:

20...Qxe4 21.Bd3 Qg6 22.Bxg6

And White won after 20 more moves.

Tania Sachdev has been better for most of the game against Davorin Kuljasevic and is still pushing. It may end in a draw, but then she will be on the better end of it.

'Maggie' van Foreest has just lost the endgame against Iva Videnova, who played very patiently and in the end closed in on the white king. A pity for our little star! Will she bounce back one more time to end on plus-1?

The winner of the game, Iva Videnova.

Roeland Pruijssers has a winning endgame now. His kingside pawns, helped by rook and king, are faster and more dangerous than Black's queenside pawns.

Saduakassova on the other hand seems to be holding in a 3 vs 2 rook ending - a theoretical draw, but Kollars may try for a little longer.

Tournament direct Loek van Wely and living chess legend Jan Timman had a great time in the province house in Assen. They had to play a sharp game while Dutch IM and TV personality Hans Böhm was asking them all kinds of non-chess questions. 'I was winning somewhere', Van Wely said. 'But it was a nice show anyway.' After that the three played blitz with members of the audience.

Later Vasily Ivanchuk played a game of draughts with last years vice World Champion Jan Groenendijk. Although Ivanchuk is a good draughts player who has done well in several tournaments, Groenendijk was too strong for him. After that they also played blitz draughts with visitors.

Tomorrow Timman will give a clock simul at the town hall against five players who have won a contest in which they had to answer a number of questions (chess-technical as well as trivia) about Timman. Then we will see if they know as much about chess as they do about this famous chess player.

Kollars and Sadduakassova are going to pay blitz to decide who gets into the final!

After no less than five highly tense blitz games the young German GM Dmitrij Kollars has reached the final of the Open. Dinara Saduakassova was trailing several times but showed incredible tenacity, especially in Game 2 and 4. In Game 5 Kollars won a pawn but the Kazach top player looked to be holding again. However a quite pointed treatment of the ending brought Kollars victory after all.

The pairings for tomorrow are:

Pruijssers-Kollars (final) and

Saduakassova-Beerdsen