Simul

Friday evening at eight o'clock, the drawing of lots took place, followed immediately by the traditional simultaneous exhibition. Grandmaster Pavel Eljanov took plenty of time for it.

It's always hard to predict when a simultaneous exhibition will end, and over the years we've seen quite a bit of variation in Vlissingen. One time, there was a grandmaster who wanted to catch the 9:30 movie—he rushed through his rounds and walked into the cinema just in time. In stark contrast, we once witnessed the legendary Viktor Korchnoi, who fully lived up to his nickname “the Terrible,” and with visible delight slowly tightened the screws on his opponents, one painful move at a time. The organizers present, who had managed to keep their eyes open only with the help of matchsticks, let out a collective sigh of relief when Viktor finally checkmated his last opponent at 1:30 in the morning.

Fortunately, Eljanov didn’t go to such extremes, but even so, the first victories didn’t come until after more than two hours of play. Things sped up a bit afterward, but it was still around 11:30 p.m. when Zeeland native Manuel Colsen, the last remaining player, was finally forced to topple his king. Hein Donner once wrote that during simuls, you should never checkmate the organizing club's board members too quickly. Now, Manuel may not be on the board, but he is a loyal sponsor of the HZ Tournament. The organizers certainly appreciated Eljanov’s unintentional gesture.

A tough row for the grandmaster. Second from the left: Jeroen Hekhuis;
all the way on the right: Henrik Westerweele.

There were some successes, including for tournament volunteer Henrik Westerweele, who managed to secure a draw. The same result was achieved by the Souburg player Jeroen Hekhuis, who even went two pawns up against what he himself called “some compensation.” However, after taking a deeper look at the position (see below), it turned out that the compensation was a bit more than “some,” and Jeroen quickly opted for a draw by repetition.

31. .. Rb2 32. Rbc1 Rbc2 33. Ra1 Ra2 34. Rac1 ...and a draw. For both sides, it was too dangerous to avoid the repetition.

The final score was four draws, and all other games ended in victories for the Ukrainian grandmaster. During the drawing of lots, he even scored a perfect 100% — he drew White for the first round and was very pleased with that.

At the start of the tournament, tournament photographer Tina Rouwendal’s right index finger is still fresh and showing no signs of fatigue yet — follow this link for access to a large collection of photos from the simul.