Hoogeveen starts tomorrow + Yifan in Hamburg

by Frederic Friedel
10/15/2016 – The first round of this prestigeous tournament begin on Sunday. It has a very stong Open, and two amateur groups. But of greatest interest are the Hoogeveen Matches that pit Women's World Champion Hou Yifan against former WCh Challenger Nigel Short, and young Dutch star Jorden van Foreest against Ivan Sokolov. Earlier this week, on her way to Holland, Yifan was in Hamburg and visited ChessBase. Big illustrated report by Frederic Friedel.

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The Hoogeveen Chess Tournament starts on Saturday, October 15 (opening ceremony) and ends on Saturday, October 22 2016. The tournament consists of the Hoogeveen Matches, the Hoogeveen Open and two amateur tournaments. All tournaments will take place in the attractive town hall of the Dutch city of Hoogeveen. In the chess café, well-known commentators will analyse the games with the audience. The games can also be followed live on Playchess and on the official website.

Hoogeveen Matches: Hou Yifan vs Nigel Short, Jorden van Foreest vs Ivan Sokolov.

Hoogeveen Open: Nine rounds will be played, with space for approximately 84 players who must have a minimal rating of 2000. The Hoogeveen Open is an international tournament, and consequently (grand-) master norms can be achieved. There is a total prize fund of €7,500 with a 1st prize of €3,000.

Amateur toernaments: Group I (= afternoon group): for players with a rating up to 2100. Group II (= morning group): also for players with a rating up to 2100. Each group can contain a maximum of 84 players. They play eight rounds. 1st prize for both groups is €250 each.

Rate of play: 40 moves in 90 minutes, 30 minutes extra time + an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Venue: Town Hall Hoogeveen, Raadhuisplein 1, 7901 BP Hoogeveen.

Tournament Schedule

Date Matches Hoogeveen Open Amateur Analysis
Sat. 15 Oct. opening Round 1 (14.00) R1 (10.00/14.30)  
Sun. 16 Oct. Round 1 (14.00) Round 2 (14.00) R2(9.30/14.00) Jop Delemarre
Mon. 17 Oct. Round 2 (14.00) Rround 3 (14.00) R3 (9.30/14.00) Gert Ligterink
Tues. 18 Oct. Round 3 (14.00) Round 4 (14.00) R4 (9.30/14.00) Hans Bohm
Wed. 19 Oct. Rest day R5 (9.00) + R6 (15.00) R5 (9.30/14.00)  
Thurs. 20 Oct. Round 4 (14.00) Round 7(14.00) R6 (9.30/14.00) Cor van Wijgerden
Fri. 21 Oct. Round 5 (14.00) Round 8 (14.00) R7 (9.30/14.00) Robert Ris
Sat. 22 Oct. R6 (12.00), closing Round 9 (12.00) R8 (9.30/14.00) Joris Brenninkmeijer

Start of Rounds – Matches: Rounds 1-5 start at 14.00h. Round 6: 12.00h. Hoogeveen Open: Round 1-4, 7 and 8 at 14.00h. Round 5: 9.00h. Round 6: 15.00 h. Round 9: 12.00h. Amateur Group 1: 1st round at 14.30h; other rounds at 14.00h

Registration before the first round: All players are required to check in at the tournament desk before the first round. Open tournament: Saturday 15th October between 12.00-13.00h; Amateur 1: Saturday 15th October between 12.30-13.30h; Amateur 2: Saturday 15th October between 08.30-09.00h. If you do not check in on time, another participant may be paired in your place.

Entry fee: For the Open Tournament €80, free for IGMs and IMs, FMs €50; youth players, born in or after 1998, also pay €50. Entrance fee for either of the amateur tournaments is €50 for all participants.

Sponsors: Gemeente Hoogeveen, Drenthe, McDonald's Hoogeveen.

Accommodation: Private addresses (Bed & Breakfast), pensions or campings: Tourist Information; Hotel Hoogeveen (Tel 0528 26 33 03); Hotel Van der Valk Spier/Dwingeloo (Tel: 0593 56 48 05; Bungalowpark and camping De Westerbergen in Echten, approx. 7km from the town hall (Tel. 0528 25 12 24).

Contact: Tournament administration Chess Tournament Hoogeveen, Postbus 88, 7900 AB Hoogeveen. Email: secretariaat@hoogeveenchess.nl. Bank account: NL67ABNA0610325876

Top Participants

Open Group

# Name Fed. Rtng
1 GM Gupta, Abhijeet IND 2626
2 GM Sandipan, Chanda IND 2593
3 GM Lalith Babu IND 2586
4 GM Werle, Jan NED 2555
5 GM Shyam, Sundar M. IND 2552
6 GM Ernst, Sipke NED 2540
7 GM Debashis, Das IND 2478
8 IM Rathnakaran, K. IND 2469
9 IM Ten Hertog, Hugo NED 2468
10 GM Romanishin, Oleg UKR 2456
11 IM Bellia, Fabrizio ITA 2447
12 IM Thejkumar, M. S. IND 2445
13 GM Sundararajan, K. IND 2439
14 WGM Karavade, Eesha IND 2421
15 GM Jonkman, Harmen NED 2413
16 IM Nitin, S. IND 2410
17 FM Beerdsen, Thomas NED 2404
18 IM Valdes, Leonardo CRC 2391
19 FM Vereggen, Lars NED 2380
20 Hemant, Sharma IND 2367

All participants

Open 1

# Name Rtng
1 Stavast, Dick 2080
2 Poelstra, Ben 1991
3 Van den Bergh, B. 1985
4 Lootsma, Jan 1985
5 Van Urk, Auke 1936
6 Knight, David 1931
7 Baars, Gerard 1904
8 Tissink, Arjan 1900
9 Mol, Christiaan 1886
10 Boerkamp, Harrie 1886
11 Van Popta, Hette 1883
12 Burer, Humphrey 1880
13 Van Doorn, Hans 1868
14 Burer, Audry 1864
15 Elgersma, Onno 1862
16 Minnema, Rens 1861
17 Sirletti, Sonia 1858
18 Wiersma, Wytse 1849
19 Schol, Jan 1846
20 Hadderingh, T. 1843

All participants

Open 2

# Name Rtng
1 Van Hamond, Fons 2008
2 Flohr, Ron 1924
3 Fleur, Tinus 1916
4 Stallinga, Robert 1911
5 Van Dongen, Rob 1861
6 Van de Griendt, W. 1853
7 Hummel, Dick 1841
8 Tan, Boen 1825
9 Boontje, Willem 1823
10 Mentink, Toon 1814
11 Stoop, Jan 1806
12 In 't Veld, René 1765
13 Montsma, F-Jan 1748
14 Van Setten, Alex. 1744
15 Van Kesteren, Stef 1729
16 Land, Marc 1708
17 Limani, Elez 1700
18 Gerbens, Almar 1693
19 Van de Laar, André 1670
20 Dalmolen, Dick 1662

All participants

Yifan in Hamburg

The big match in Hoogeveen (pronounced Hoch-a-vain) is between Women's World Champion Hou Yifan from China, and former World Championship Challenger Nigel Short. Before her trip to the tournament Yifan stopped over in Hamburg for a few days and visited the ChessBase office. There she participated in a live Q&A on Playchess, Facebook and Twitter. A full report on this one-hour session (with full video) will follow shortly.

My goodness, what a lot of wonderful DVDs! Hou Yifan in the ChessBase office.

Is this one on Emanuel Lasker good? She could take any that caught her fantasy.

Yifan with GM Vidit Gujrathi and ChessBase CEO Matthias Wüllenweber. Vidit, 21, is one of India's brightest young chess stars. He is in Hamburg to record two DVDs on the Caro Kann.

Yifan gets lessons in ChessBase and the ChessBase Account. Of particular interest for her were the Tactics Trainer (see description) and the function "Similar games" (in the in the "Report" tab of ChessBase).

Matthias showed the two GMs some of the functions of the next ChessBase program

You find an appropriate caption to this picture...

And off to Hoogeveen

After the stopover in Hamburg we drove down to Hoogeveen – an easy three-hour journey. Well, easy until we had to search for the hotel in which the top players are being put up.

The very beautiful hotel Spaarbank Hoeve is hidden at the end of path leading into a forest

This is what the garden park outside the hotel looks like – really!

On our second day in Hoogeveen Yifan's opponent Nigel Short arrived, and shared lunch with us

What is a "git"? Nigel had tweeted a question to Hou in her ChessBase Q&A session two days earlier ...

"#AskYifan @ChessBase Are you going to beat that useless old English git?" Now she knows.

With her is Yifan's mother Wang Qian, one of nicest people we have met

Also in the hotel: top seed and last year's winner Abhijeet Gupta, rated 2626

Third seed GM Lalith Babu, rated 2586. Almost 20% of the Open players are Indian


Links

The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.
 

Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the ChessBase News page. Studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. In 1986 he co-founded ChessBase.

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