Dutch Champions: Loek Van Wely and Anne Haast

The new Dutch Champions: ChessBase author Loek Van Wely and Anne Haast

Before Van Wely could hold the winner's trophy in his hand, he had some moments of anxiety. Because it was Wouter Spoelman who had led the field with 4.0/6 before the last round of the Dutch Championship, which this year was played as an eight-player round-robin tournament in the Manor Hotel in Amsterdam.

Manor Hotel, Amsterdam

But in the last round Spoelman lost against Benjamin Bok, while Van Wely and Sergei Tiviakov, who were trailing Spoelman by half a point, won against Dimitry Reinderman and Erwin L'Ami respectively to share first place with 4.5/7 each.

The quiet before the storm: Benjamin Bok and Wouter Spoelman before the last round

Loek Van Wely kept his cool and won the crucial last round game with black 

Sergei Tiviakov also had black - and also won.

Thus, a tie-break had to decide about the title. Van Wely won 2-0 and became Dutch Champion for the seventh time.

Games

Tie-Break Games

Women's Championship

In the Women's Championship Anne Haast won the title for the first time. With 5.5/7 the 21-year old finished half a point ahead of Bianca Muhren. Peng Zhaoqin, who had dominated Dutch women's chess for more than a decade, became third.

The decisive game was played in the last round when Haast won against Peng. However, in a well-known line of the Queens Gambit Accepted Haast was lost at a certain moment when Peng missed a chance to reach a winning position through a temporary queen sacrifice - an idea which had already occurred in the stem game of this line, Taimanov-Polugayevsky, Leningrad 1960. Later on, Peng spoiled an albeit worse but still tenable endgame.

Again, Black proved to be the lucky color

Games

Biance Muhren (right) became third

Interview with Loek van Wely (Dutch)

Interview with Anne Haast (Dutch)

Links Official tournament site All games (Men) in PGN All games (Women) in PGN