Report rounds 1-5: De Boer, Slagboom in the lead

After Anish Giri's masterclass and the blitz chess tournament, both on Friday, it was time for the big nine-round tournament starting Saturday and the weekday four-player round robins starting Monday. The Montessori College Oostpoort fills up with hundreds of chess players every day and holds up reasonably well against the hot weather, although we are already thinking about a better solution for the boards in the gymnastics area next year, as it is a bit too hot there. Apologies for that. 

IM Eelke de Boer and FM Leandro Slagboom are jointly leading Group A and will face each other on Thursday. The two have collected 4.5 points, half a point more than the trio of FM Gachatur Kazarjan, IM Rob Schoorl, and Laurens Schilstra. De Boer and Slagboom have dropped only half a point so far, and in the case of the former, we can speak of a classic Swiss Gambit. The player from Groningen was held to a draw in the very first round by a highly solid-playing Lode de Jong. Benefiting from three white games in the following four rounds, De Boer subsequently managed to win all his games. In the fifth round, his opponent Marijn den Hartog proved not to be fully up to speed with Italian theory. De Boer-Den Hartog

12…Qg3?! This looks nice, but the correct move is 12...Qf5, as seen in lots of top grandmaster games.  13.Qxh5 Qxf2+ 14.Kh2 Bd6?! 14...Qxe1 15.Ndf3 Qxe5+ 16.Nxe5 Nxe5 was played in an online game and is a bit more resilient.  15.Ndf3

Now White stays material up. 15...Nxe5 16.Rxe5 Nd7 17.Bf4! Nxe5 18.Bxe5 Qxb2?! 18...Bxe5+ 19.Qxe5 Rae8 20.Qxc7 Re2 was a bit more resilient, but after 21.Qg3 Rxb2 22.Qxf2 Rxf2 23.Rd1 White is also winning. 19.Bxd6 cxd6 20.Ng5 h6 21.Nxf7 Rxf7 22.Qxf7+ Kh8 23.Re1 1-0 Slagboom's tournament so far was the exact opposite: he started with four wins only to draw quickly with Schoorl on Wednesday. It didn't go entirely smoothly, as Slagboom got away with a problematic position in the third round. Opponent Michael Wunnink pointed out to the author of this piece that he could have captured his opponent's queen with a fine, quiet move. Wunnink-Slagboom

25.Qb3?! White misses the win. The calm 25.Ra4! makes ...Qxc4 particularly unattractive because of b4–b5 with material gain. The annoying thing for Black is that on the next move (Rd1) he will be forced to take the pawn while the knight has nowhere to go. 25...Qd2 26.Ra2 Qxg5 27.Rfa1? 27.Nb5 would have prevented Black's move, after which White still has an excellent position. 27...Rf3!

Now the tables turn. 28.Kf1 Raf8! 29.Bxf3 Rxf3 Because of the simple yet deadly threat h5-h4-h3, Black had a winning attack here. 30.Qd1 Rxc3 31.Rxa6 Rh3 32.Qc2 Qg4 33.Ke1 Bh6 34.Ra8+ Kh7 0-1 Schilstra is the only player without a title in the top five. He reached four points thanks to a victory as Black over FM Onno Elgersma, who played very frivolously after the opening and undoubtedly expected more from his pawn sacrifices. Elgersma-Schilstra

17.Kf1?! Better was 17.Qb3 to prevent ...Nc4 and then castle queenside. 17...0-0-0 18.b3?! e5! 19.c4?! exd4 20.c5?!?

White is going for the beauty prize, but that is far off. 20...Bxc5 21.Rc1 Bxa3 22.Ra1 Qe7 Black had everything under control and eventually won after 79 moves. In the B-group, there is also a pair with 4.5 points: Ivo Kroon and Simeon Hoetink. Whereas Wunnik missed a queen capture, Hoetink managed to pull it off in the same round: Havenaar-Hoetink

15…Bd7!? Very cunning. 16.b3? White doesn't suspect a thing. 16...Bb4! The queen is already trapped, time to pick it up. 17.a3 c5 0-1 In Group C, anything can still really happen with no fewer than five players on 4.5 points: Django Rossa, Bilal Eren Saricicek, Krijn ter Braake, Henk Veerman, and John Arlet. Fortunately, everyone in that group has broken their losing streak, which cannot be said of the lower ranks of Group A and B. Meanwhile, the weekday four-player round robin tournaments have finished, with over a hundred participants. In the strongest group, Vincent Spit and Joel van der Werd finished at the top with 2/3 ahead of Alexander Sleeckx (1.5/3) and Lars Vistisen (0/3). Two additional events have already taken place: the first Bar Blitz tournament, a fine group of 41 participants won by Roger Mehra on Sunday evening, and the music night on Tuesday at Q-Factory. Chess was played in a convivial atmosphere with background music provided by chess players behind the turntables. This concept was the brainchild of co-organizer Yali Hendrix, who also celebrated her 25th birthday that evening. Congratulations!