Hoogeveen Open

I played the Hoogeveen Open from the 15^th to 22^nd of October in a small town named Hoogeveen in the Netherlands. The tournament had nine rounds with the time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

A lot of quality players took part in the tournament, and there was a big race to finish in the top 4 after 7 rounds, because of the special tournament system. After the seventh round, the top four qualified to the semi-finals, and the rest continued playing the tournament. It caused a lot of interesting games and a constant change in the leaders of the tournament.

To the semi-finals qualified: GM Bharath Subramaniyam H from India and GM Romanov Evgeny from Norway with 6 points and GM Hovhannisyan Robert from Armenia and IM Zwirs Nico from Netherlands with 5,5 points. The first round of the semi-finals Zwirs beat Subramaniyam with white and qualified for the finals. The second match was more interesting cause after a hard fight the game ended with a draw and the tie-breaks decided about who will go to the finals. In the tie-breaks, Hovhannisyan took an advantage and fought his way to the finals.

The final and the third-place match were even more tense. The game between Romanov and Subramaniyam ended first – it was a draw. But in the tie-breaks, Subramaniyam won and secured himself a third place. The other game (Hovhannisyan – Zwirs) was very thrilling. In the complicated endgame, the evaluation was changing after almost every move. After a hard fight, it again resolved to draw, so another tie-break followed. In the first game, Hovhannisyan held a draw with black and in the second one he beat Zwirs and won the first place of the tournament.

During the top four were playing the semi-finals and finals, the rest of us continued to play the eighth and ninth round of the original tournament. In the last two rounds, GM Fernandez Daniel Howard from England scored one and half out of two and by this, he placed fifth in the tournament.

I took part in this tournament as well. Already, from the start, it went very well. I had 2 points after 2 rounds and was playing a fide master in the third round. I’ve reached a winning position but unfortunately blundered in the time trouble and lost the game. But even after this, the tournament continued with quite excellent results. In the end with 5,5 points, I’ve reached 21^st place in the tournament and gained +106 rating points, plus I won the women’s third prize.

Alongside the open section, there were matches in between four grand masters. They played for six rounds. The first match was played between GM Luke McShane from England and GM Lucas van Foreest from the Netherlands. After the first round it looked like McShane took the lead by winning with white, but van Foreest immediately equalised the score by winning in the second round. Then Lucas held a draw with black in the third round and won the next one. After a draw in the fifth round, McShane had to push with black in the last round, but that costed him another point and van Foreest won 4:2.

The other match was playing GM Dardha Daniel from Belgium and GM Warmerdam Max from the Netherlands. After two draws in the first two days, Max took the lead by winning with black. A draw followed this in the next round. The fifth round was surprising cause after a long game Daniel won a completely drawish endgame and equalised the match. After all, the match ended indecisively (3:3) because of the draw in the last game, so tie-breaks had to decide again – this has shown good for Dardha who won in the end.

During these dates, there was an amateur tournament as well. The 7-round tournament has the maximum allowed rating of 2000. De Vries Brah won the section with 6 points. The second place took Mohtaat Homayoun with 6 points as well but with worse tie-break. Bruggink Tycho won the third place with 5,5 points. 

It was a very nice tournament with a pleasant atmosphere, good conditions and, most importantly, friendly people. Hopefully, there will be more events like this in the future 🙂 

Author

LUCIA ŠEVČÍKOVÁ