Round 1: the preview

A preview? After round one? Yes, absolutely, why not? Here in Zeeland, we don’t make a fuss about that. The rating differences in the first round are always large, and none of the favorites dropped even half a point. So, who should we be keeping an eye on this week?

First and foremost, of course, Pavel Eljanov, who, with a rating of 2680, is clearly the top seed in the field. A class act, Eljanov served as a second in two World Championship matches and has experience playing at the very highest level. In his younger years (he’s already a whole 42 now), he had a peak rating of 2761 and was firmly in the world’s top 10. At present, he's still number 45 on the world ranking—a position many would gladly trade for.

The main challenger is Erwin l’Ami. The former Dutch Champion was Topalov’s second in the 2010 World Championship match against Anand, so just like Eljanov, he has tasted life atop the chess Olympus. But Erwin isn’t the only Dutch contender—Grandmasters Thomas Beerdsen and local hero Koen Leenhouts will also surely be eyeing that trophy.

A dangerous dark horse is Eelke de Boer, who won the Dutch Open Championship just the week before the HZ Tournament. Last year in Vlissingen, Eelke scored his third and final IM norm. Now he’s hunting for the grandmaster title. He already has one norm in the bag, and a second is still within reach here in Vlissingen. Still, because as I write this, Eelke has just survived a terrible position in round two—and managed to win it anyway. Never rush a tournament preview...

Eelke de Boer playing white against Harmen van Beek (round 1)

Round 1
After brief opening speeches by KNSB chairman Dirk Hoogland and Vlissingen mayor Bas van den Tillaar, we were able to kick things off more or less on time. The mayor made the ceremonial first move on Eljanov’s board: 1. d4! The Ukrainian grandmaster thought it was an excellent choice. The tournament was underway!

Because Vlissingen doesn’t use separate rating groups, the differences in playing strength during round one are usually pretty stark.There were a few surprises here and there, but as already hinted in the opening paragraph, Professor Elo did his job well on the top 15 boards: all the favorites won. The biggest upset happened on board 81: Lars Christian Vollmer managed to defeat an opponent rated 249 points higher. By the way, the youngest winner was Roan Lenting, born in 2013.

Roan Lenting (2013 - or 2017 if you prefer his rating)

Grandmaster Preparation
If you're curious how a chess grandmaster prepares for the HZ Tournament by eating fish and visiting a playground, take a look at Koen Leenhouts' blog. In Dutch, but nowadays everybody knows how to use ChatGPT....

Update: Pictures
Tournament photographer Tina Rouwendal just put the pictures of round 1 online