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The venue as seen through the lens of Frits
Agterdenbos
The tournament banner
It was a strange but excellent tournament. The lineup was as good as could be hoped for with both variety and quality, but despite the great games, the players were slightly overshadowed by the rolling back of the clock to not only add a half an hour to the thinking time, but resurrect adjournments as well. In the end, the adjournments made for an interesting curiosity, but the extra half an hour most likely had a deeper effect on the quality of play in the first 40 moves.
The playing hall with the various tournaments taking place
Vassily Ivanchuk was inspired, and as is known, when in that form, he is a juggernaut. With 5.0/6 and a near 3000 Elo performance, he dominated the event like no one. He won't gain any Elo as the event was not rated, but the spectators were gifted with wonderful games to enjoy at leisure.
It was a sizzling Vassily Ivanchuk who showed up (photo by Lennart Ootes)
In second was Gata Kamsky with a superb 4.5/6 and 2889 performance, followed by ACP president Emil Sutovsky with 3.5/6. Note that Anna Muzychuk gave a solid showing with 50%, including a win over Krishnan Sasikiran.
ACP president Emil Sutovsky was in fine form
The lovely Anna Muzychuk
gave a good performance
Anish Giri watching Robin van Kampen against Sipke Ernst
The Dutch Championship was dominated by a re-energized Anish Giri, whose results had suffered while he focused on his academic exams. He scored a sublime 6.0/7, and might even have scored an extra half point against his rival Jan Smeets, with whom he has swapped titles in the last years, but decided that his result was enough. Jan Smeets was not at his best and came in fifth. In second and third were Ivan Sokolov whose tiebreak at 5.0/7 was slightly superior to Erwin L'Ami with the same score.
Anish Giri was imperial at the 2012 Dutch Championship
Tea Lanchava is the first woman in thirteen years to win the Dutch Women Championship
other than the hitherto untouchable Zhaoqin Peng.
The Dutch Women Championship has been dominated for the past twelve years by GM Zhaoqin Peng, with even complete whitewash results in her tally. It was clear this year might be a change in the guard when she lost to Tea Lanchava in the second round and was forced to play catchup. Tea Lanchava made the utmost of her opportunity and took the title with a 4.5/6 score, ahead of Peng on 4.0/5. In third was Anne Haast.
The mighty GM Zhaoqin Peng
Photos by
© Frits Agterdenbos of ChessVista
Links
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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