Groningen Chess Festival

The Groningen Chess Festival took place from December 21st to December 30th. Many events took place, including scholastic events, amateur tournaments and even puzzle solving competitions. However the main attractions were surely the Open tournament and the match between to legendary chess players: Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman.

Karpov-Timman

The match was held in the Groningen Museum of Art and it was played to four games. The first three games were relatively uneventful draws. However, in the night before the fourth game, Timman suffered quite an accident! He fell and broke his hand, which had him most of the morning before his fourth round in the hospital. Incredibly he decided to play regardless, but Karpov proved to be too much for him during the last round:

A lively commentary room followed the games closely

Karpov does a little post-mortem from one of the drawn games

Karpov and Timman played a World Championship match in 1993, which Karpov won convincingly 12.5-8.5 However this match was overshadows by what many consider to be the actual World Championship match of that year, the PCA's Kasparov vs. Short.

Two of the great legends of chess!

Replay all games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Open Section

The open section brought many grandmasters from all over the World. The tournament ended in a four way tie between Erwin L'Ami, Zaven Andriasian, Benjamin Bok and Sipke Ernst.

Peng Zhaoqin had an unbelievable event and won
approximately 25 rating points with a 2570 performance

Erwin L'Ami, spouse of the globetrotter Alina L'Ami,
clinched first by quickly drawing Bok in the last round

Danielian shoots a smile to her opponent and fellow Armenian player...

Zaven Andriasian. One of the four winners of the event.

Benjamin Bok secured his third GM norm with a round to spare,
but he will need yet another norm to complete his title

Ernst has always been a strong player in the Netherlands

These girls warm up by playing some four way chess! Look at the determination on the game...

The scholastic section brought together hundreds of players

But let us not forget the legends of old!

Replay games from the open section

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Alina L'Ami had another good performance with 6.0/9

Final Rankings

Photos by Harry Gielen, Ab Scheel and Bart Beijer, taken from the official website