Konstantin Landa wins 15th HZ Open 2011

The Russian Grandmaster Konstantin Landa has won the 15th edition of the HZ chess tournament 2011. The Russian’s victory over Erwin L'Ami and Jan Smeets' defeat from GM Arkadij made him sole winner of the event with 8 points out of possible 9. The Dutch masters were left with empty hands disillusioned.

L'Ami chose sicillian Najdorf but Landa played well enough to get the maximum. L’Ami could never justify his exchange sacrifice, the endgame with a bishop for a rook was ultimately impossible to save L'Ami. Jane Smeet had a huge advantage over German top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch till 20th move then he made first wrong move: 21. … Rd7?

Instead 21. … Nd4 should have been played followed by 22. … Be6 in response to either 22. Nd4 or 22. Bd4, BUT for Arkadij Naiditsch “all is well that ends well”. Jan Smeet went to 6th place with 7 points while Arkadij Naiditsch shared 3rd place with American Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan and Israeli GM Evgeny Postny by scoring 7.5 points each.

Yasser Seirawan beat Evgeny Svesnikov and Evgeny Postny crushed Zaragatski. Besides the aforementioned Jan Smeets there were also Thomas Henrichs, Chakkravarthy Deepan, Twan Burg and Edwin van Haastert with 7 points.

Translated by Waqar Ahmad Madni (www.pakchess.org)