On 15th of February, the third stage of the FIDE Grand Prix began in Tbilisi, Georgia. In the first round the top seed of the event, Alexander Grischuk, scored a win with the black pieces over Rustam Kasimdzhanov. The game was complicated, as our fellow editor Alejandro Ramirez pointed out in his first round report. But what interested me the most about the game was the opening choice of Alexander Grischuk. Let’s have a look at the initial moves.
This is one of the most exciting positions in modern chess theory. Have you ever seen two black passed pawns on a5 and b4 after just 12 moves of the opening? In order to compensate for the same White has strong centre control with pawns on e3, d4 and c4. There are so many imbalances that an objective evaluation of this position is simply impossible. The result of this game depends entirely on the strength and accuracy of subsequent play of both the players. It is this unbalanced nature that has attracted masters of chaos like Shirov, Ivanchuk and Nakamura to give it a go from the black side.
After seeing this opening with unusual opening moves and atypical resulting position, it might be easy to assume that this was invented just a few years ago. It definitely looks like a hypermodern idea. But you will pleasantly surprised to know that it was first played on the third of May, 1931, by a player named Daniel Noteboom. And hence the name: Noteboom Variation.
Daniel Noteboom was a Dutch Chess player born in 1910. He gained prominence in the chess world after he scored 11.5/15 at the Chess Olympiad held in Hamburg in 1930. He was an extremely talented player whose life was cut short due to pneumonia. Noteboom died at the age of just 21 years in 1932. Though he had a very brief career, he made a lasting impression on the chess theory with the invention of the Noteboom Variation. As we saw, his idea has stood the test of time and is still played by the absolute elite.
A beautiful wooden chess board, DGT 3000, the
winner’s trophy and a picture
of Daniel Noteboom in whose memory this tournament was held
The 75th Daniel Noteboom Weekend Tournament was held at the Corpus Congress Centre in the town of Leiden from the 13th to 15th of February 2015. The chief Sponsor for the event was Corpus. The tournament had three different groups. Group A was for players above the rating of 1900, group B for players between the rating of 1600 and 2000 and group C for players below 1700. All the three tournaments had six rounds. However, the main event was definitely the “Corpus Vierkamp” which had four of Netherlands best chess players pitted against each other in a round-robin tournament.
Participants of the Corpus Vierkamp, clockwise
from upper left: Loek Van Wely (2657),
Jan Timman (2553), Predrag Nikolic (2588) and Jan Smeets (2625)
The playing venue was the conference hall in the….
….Corpus Congress Centre. The eye catching
building which is in the form of
a sitting man is called “the journey through the human body”.
You can literally take a tour through the different human body structures within the building!
Coming back to chess! In the first round Loek Van Wely played a smooth positional game against Predrag Nikolic from the black side of the Vienna System and emerged victorious. In the other game, which was the battle between two Jan’s, Timman played the Pirc Defence against Smeets. It was a very interesting game in the topical line of the Austrian Attack. But after accurate play by both sides, the game ended in a draw. Thus Van Wely emerged as the leader after the first round.
Nikolic beats Smeets in a topsy turvy game in the Classical Slav. But definitely the game of the day was Loek Van Wely vs Jan Timman.
Van Wely played an excellent positional game to emerge two pawns up with a completely winning position. He had such a dominant position that Timman’s resignation was on cards at any moment. Under time pressure Loek squandered quite a bit of his advantage. The technical task was no longer so easy. But what happened next was simply unfathomable.
In this position Van Wely played 41.Re4?? I am sure you notice the problem immediately!
Oh my God, it’s mate! Van Wely cannot believe what he had done.
It’s not over till it’s over! Jan Timman emerged as the leader after two rounds with a score of 1.5/2.
– Part two of this report will follow shortly –
Pictures by Folkert Geersma
If you are interested to learn the Noteboom Variation the following DVD is perfect for you:
The
Triangle Setup - A complete defense against 1.d4Languages: English
ISBN: 978-3-86681-457-8
Delivery: Download, Post
Level: Tournament player, Professional
€29.90 or €25.13 without VAT (for Customers outside the EU)
$28.39 (without VAT)
The Semi-Slav defense (1.d4 d5 followed by ...e7-e6 and ...c7-c6) is one of the most popular opening set-ups for Black. Black can follow two entirely different concepts. One includes an early ...Ng8-f6 and leads to a number of popular and deeply analysed systems: the Meran, the Anti-Meran, the Botvinnik, the Moscow, the Anti- Moscow, the Westphalian, etc. The other, in which Black refrains from ...Ng8-f6 at an early stage, is presented by GM Michal Krasenkow on this DVD. Black keeps a choice between two double-edged interesting systems: the Noteboom variation (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 dxc4) and the Stonewall (...f7-f5) if White plays an early e2-e3. Of course Black’s decision to refrain from an early ...Ng8-f6 gives White other options, the most important being the Slav gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e4 etc.). Therefore Black’s set-up may lead to a whole range of different and interesting positions, which help the black player to broaden his strategic and tactical understanding. This makes the Noteboom/Stonewall opening repertoire a particularly good choice for young, aspiring players.
• Video running time: 5 hours 29 minutes
• With interactive training including video feedback
• Analysis texts of the variations by Krasenkow
• Exclusive database with 75 annotated Grandmaster games
• Including CB 12 Reader
Order Krasenkow's Triangle Setup DVD in the ChessBase Shop
LinksYou can use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com. |
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