Dutch Open 2011 - Days 1 & 2

by Moulthun

After quite an anxious night waiting before the day of the tournament, we were restless and sleep was minimal. This helps to explain why we woke up quite a bit later than planned. After scrambling our way from Amsterdam to Dieren with about 7 kgs of books in my bags (I can never get enough of a good read), we got to the playing venue by noon in time for registration. The field for the open is quite strong and diverse with 14 GM's playing among a field of 63 players. The playing venue is quite comfortable, we were worried that if it got too warm it would be a case of Belfort World Youths (2005) all over again.

The tournament results can be seen here.

Round 1

Both Junta and I won comfortably (in Junta's game, his opponent was slightly better but blundered) against 2100 opposition which was a relief since we were tired and not in the mood for a long tussle. Andrew, however, had to play GM Vladimir Georgiev. After having the initiative throughout the entire game he was unlucky to fall into a three move repetition while getting low on time. A situation that has happened to many players including me, myself and I several times. In the final position Andrew says simply ...Rf3 instead gives very good winning chances.

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Round 2

The second round saw me playing Jan Timman as Black which is always a difficult task. I chose a double-edged pawn sacrifice variation in the Fianchetto King's Indian, Jan took my first pawn but thought the second one would come at too high a cost and preferred Nd1 instead. At the 10-move mark I had used only 3 minutes while Jan had used over 40 minutes, showing the sheer class and experience of my opposition. I was making moves from memory, while he was deciding on which middlegame position from his vast pool of knowledge he preferred to enter. After ...f5 the game was quite sharp and unclear as to who was better, and White was soon two pawns up but sacrificed one back to take queens off and consolidate the position which was the right decision, in my view. We finally got down to a knight (me) versus bishop endgame with one pawn each at the end. It seemed as though my knight, after manouevering to the h8-square, had run out of moves but luckily enough my passed a-pawn saved the day.

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Andrew was White against a Dutch FM, the game was going well but after centralising the a1-rook instead of recapturing a centre pawn with a slightly better position, Black held onto his material advantage and soon won two exchanges, where the unopposed two bishops were not very happy. Junta was playing White against GM Andrey Vovk, he seemed to experienced no difficulties and after a slight inaccuracy by his opponent in the opening, he obtained a mighty bishop on g2 and slight advantage going on to convert. He was very happy with his usually poor time management, as he was always ahead on the clock.

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Tomorrow:
Vladimir Georgiev (2559) - Junta
Moulthun - Yuri Vovk (2564) - will both be on the live boards.
Tijmen Kampman (2111) - Andrew

There should be some photos from tomorrow's post too :)