Round 2 and 3: empty boards
Sunday is always the day of the empty boards. Many chess players—30% of the participants in our case—find playing two games in one day too exhausting. Practitioners of more physical sports might scoff at that. Sitting on your lazy backside for seven or eight hours—how tired can you really get? Well, we know better. There's a big difference between watching SBS6 all afternoon and having your brain under competitive pressure all day long.
We almost had a major upset in round 2. Eelke de Boer, winner of the Dutch Championship and tipped by me yesterday as a dangerous outsider, was staring in horror at a dreadful position after just half an hour of play.
Eelke carelessly played 14... e5?? here. His opponent, Peter Kalisvaart, accepted the gift without hesitation: 15. c5 e4 16. Nxe4 Be7 17. Nxf6+ Bxf6 18. Bxh7+, and White was two pawns up. Fortunately for Eelke, Peter had his own generous moments, and in the end, Black even managed to win the game. So no major upset here after all—though there was a small surprise on another top board. Arthur de Winter stumbled in converting a completely won endgame and had to settle for just half a point.
Of course, it's not fair to focus solely on the top boards. With nearly 250 participants, there's a surprising result somewhere in almost every round. That’s why we’ve introduced the David vs Goliath Prize this year: whoever manages to overcome the largest rating gap in a single round wins a nice book prize, sponsored by Thinkers Publishing. There’s also a similar prize each round for the youngest winner.
In round 3, it was Erwin l’Ami who narrowly escaped. For a long time, he was worse against young German FM Emil Frederick Schuricht, but Erwin managed to hold on and slowly equalize the position. The game could have gone either way—until the German FM, in an unguarded moment, let the black queen invade. Five moves later, Erwin had secured the point after all.
Things went less smoothly for grandmasters Daniel Hausrath and Koen Leenhouts, who both had to settle for a draw. I suspect Koen didn’t mind too much—not so much because he was lucky to escape with the draw, but more because dropping a point after two wins gives him a fun new angle for his chess blog.
Pavel Eljanov in his round 2 game
If you're looking for entertaining games to replay, I recommend Eljanov – Van Hesselingen and Beerdsen – Grochal, where two FMs were ruthlessly put through the meat grinder.
And speaking of replaying games: our tournament can be followed live via LiveChessCloud, Chess.com, and Lichess. Especially the Lichess viewers were thoroughly entertained last night. In addition to following 15 beautiful games, they were also treated to disappearing games, extra games, and a constantly changing board order. Mea culpa.
I received an email from the Lichess team last night with instructions on how to correct the board order. With great optimism and a wildly disproportionate understanding of the system, I attempted to apply their tips during the round. While I looked forward to a neatly ordered screen of 15 games, suddenly 33 games popped up in total chaos, some even with results already displayed. Oops.
I quickly reverted everything, hoping in vain that no one had noticed.
Quick repair works while tournament director Hans Groffen
is nervously watching his laptop
Tonight is round 4, featuring the first real clash of the tournament: Eelke de Boer vs. Pavel Eljanov. Watch it live on one of our streams!
And if you’re up for a little extra excitement, tune in via Lichess.
I think I now know how to solve the issue—but I’m making absolutely no promises.