Leandro Slagboom Wins Amsterdam Chess Festival 2026

FM Leandro Slagboom won the first edition of the Amsterdam Chess Festival convincingly. The 19-year-old bachelor student in Econometrics and Operations Research scored an undefeated 8/9 and finished a point ahead of FM Rob Schoorl (7/9). The third prize was shared between IM Merijn van Delft, Marijn den Hartog and Gachatur Kazarjan, who all scored 6.5/9.

After an early exit from the Dutch Championship, Slagboom was able to enter our tournament at the last minute. Starting as the sixth seed in the A group, he only conceded two draws in the tournament. Going into the final round with a full-point lead, the player from Leeuwarden only needed a draw as Black against Van Delft. A quick draw in Schoorl-Den Hartog on board two meant that Slagboom had secured tournament victory, and he soon agreed a draw with Van Delft as well.

The two top seeds, IMs Eelke de Boer and Li Riemersma, couldn’t fight for the prizes. While the latter had to leave the tournament after round six due to family circumstances, De Boer simply seemed out of form. A key game for him was his round-six clash with Slagboom:


Slagboom-De Boer

37...Nxc6?  Black must have thought this position is an exception to the "distant passed pawn" rule, but it isn't. After something like 37...h4 White cannot make progress.  38.Rc1  White forces a winning pawn endgame.  38...Kd6 39.Bxc6 Rxc6 40.Rxc6+ Kxc6 41.h3

41...h4 41...Kc5 42.g4! "wins" the e4-square for the king. 42.Kd2 Kb6 43.Kd3 Kc5 44.Kc3 Kd5 45.a5 Kc5 46.a6 Kb6 47.Kc4 e4 48.fxe4 f4

A final attempt, but it won't work. 49.Kd3 Kxa6 50.Ke2 Kb5 51.Kf3 Kc4 52.Kg4 Kd4 53.Kxg5 Kxe4 54.Kxh4 1-0 Like the winner, Schoorl finished his tournament undefeated with five victories and four draws. Also in the sixth round, the FIDE Master from Purmerend could deliver checkmate on the board: Kazarjan-Schoorl

With such a beauty knight on f4, Black is completely winning. 36...Rc2+! 37.Kg3 Rg2+ 38.Kh4 Kg7 39.Rxf4 Rh8+ 40.Kg5 Rh5#

0-1 Van Delft avoided a loss as well with four wins and five draws. Remarkably, two of his white wins started from the same opening setup and ended with a very similar endgame with opposite-colored bishops and rooks. He won both.

17-year-old Gachatur Kazarjan from Helmond showed great fighting spirit in the tournament and was eventually rewarded with a shared third place, after beating Sourav Bhattacharjee with the black pieces. Bhattacharjee-Kazarjan

40.c4?! The hard-to-find 40.b4! was good for a draw. 40...e4 41.g4? 41.Kb1 was the best chance. 41...e3! 42.Qxf5+ Ke7

In the long run, Black's e-pawn was unstoppable. IM Manuel Bosboom didn’t have a great tournament but, as always, delivered highly entertaining games without exception. In the last round, his opponent Laurens Schilstra deserves credit for joining the fun – a game that should not be missed.

Other groups Ivo Kroon and Mark Beijen scored 7.5/9 and shared first place in Group B. Francesca Garau finished half a point behind them, in sole second place. The longest game of the whole festival was played in this group, in the penultimate round, between Liubomyr Levytskyi and Leon Elferink. After 164 moves and 6,5 hours, White settled for a draw in what was still a winning position with bishop, knight and rook pawn vs. rook. In Group C we saw a shared first place among two players as well: Bilal Eren Saricicek and Maurits Nijhuis, who scored 7.5/9. Four players finished half a point behind them: Django Rossa, Rens van der Velden, Yigit Bostanci, and Bart Attevelt. Student prizes Part of the nine-round tournament was the Open Dutch Student Championship. In Group A, Eelke de Boer and Saša Albers shared the first two student prizes, ahead of Onno Elgersma. In Group B, Jule Cordes won, ahead of Milan Koning and Robin Schenkelaars, who tied for second place. In Group C, Luca Kollen and John Arlet tied for first, ahead of Nils Thiessen. A total of 108 players played in the four-player weekend round-robin tournaments. Vincent Spit won the strongest group with 2.5/3, ahead of Hicham Boulahfa and Andres Presa Villa (both 1.5) and Daan Heus (0.5/3).

Fischerandom “I love chess, and I didn't invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, it really is dead.” These were strong words from Bobby Fischer himself, from a radio interview on June 27, 1999. Regular chess is still alive and kicking (unlike Bobby), but four players at our festival agreed with him, at least to some extent. One of the four-player round-robins followed the Fischerandom or Chess960 (or Freestyle) format, with three new starting positions each day and a classical time control nonetheless. Roger Mehra won the tournament with 3/3, ahead of Eduard Smits (2/3), Aran Kohler (1/3) and Nanne Kingma (0/3). All three enjoyed their weekend a lot and felt they played a “purer” form of chess. It’s going to be interesting to see if more players will sign up for this different format next year.

Two side events, both held on the day of the sixth round, hadn’t been mentioned yet. In the afternoon, lots of players received valuable tips from IM Eline Roebers, who served as a tournament coach. In the evening, the final Bar Blitz event was held in cafe-restaurant Eighty-Four and was won by Luc Schiebroek ahead of Roger Mehra and Jimmy Geboers. Already planning for next year, the organizers of the Amsterdam Chess Festival would like to thank all participants. Hope to see you again!