From Wednesday, August 22 to Saturday, September 1, the legendary Hotel Krasnapolsky in the very heart of Amsterdam, is the venue of the NH Chess Tournament. It’s a Scheveningen team tournament in which a team of five "Rising Stars" crosses swords with a team of five "Experienced Grandmasters". The best youngster will get an invitation to the 2008 Amber Rapid and Blindfold spectacle.
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The setup at the NH Tournament in Amsterdam
Round six: Four decided games and one that easily could have gone either way. When the dust had settled the sixth match between the Rising Stars and the Experience team had ended in a 2½-2½ tie. The overall score was now 15½-14½ in favour of the Rising Stars. In the individual standings Sergey Karjakin joined Artur Jussupow in the lead. With four rounds to go the Ukrainian top-seed seemed to be on course to win the invitation to the 2008 Amber tournament in Monaco.
What's going on here? Just Dutch photographer Fred Lucas at work
Round seven: Thanks to a 3-2 win the Rising Stars increased their lead over the Experience team to two points. With three rounds to go the overall score was 18½-16½ in favour of the youngsters. The fight for the coveted ticket to Monaco seemed to have narrowed down to a direct duel between Sergey Karjakin and Ivan Cheparinov (although Jan Smeets could not yet be counted out). They both impressed in round seven with black wins over Artur Jussupow and Alexander Khalifman respectively.
Indian super-talent Parimarjan Negi, 14, held former FIDE world champion
Alexander Khalifman to a draw in round eight
Round eight: With a 2½-2½ tie the Rising Stars maintained their two-point lead over the Experience team. With two rounds to go the overall score was 21-19 in favour of the youngsters. The fight for the invitation to the 2008 Amber tournament took a dramatic turn when Ivan Cheparinov lost his white game against Predrag Nikolic. With 5½ points from 8 games Sergey Karjakin kept the best chances to play Amber, but Jan Smeets was only half a point behind after his victory over Ljubomir Ljubojevic.
Tough battle: Ivan Cheparinov (right) defeats Alexander Beliavsky to stay
in contention
Round nine: With a 3-2 win the Experience team reduced the advantage of the Rising Stars to a single point, 23-22. With one round to go the race looked open again, although the youngsters had a considerable advantage on the final day when they defend their lead playing with the white pieces in all games. Sergey Karjakin continued to lead in the fight for the invitation to the 2008 Amber tournament. His only real challenger in the last round would be Ivan Cheparinov, who was trailing by half a point after a hard-fought win over Alexander Beliavsky.If two members of the Rising Stars team finished on top with the same number of points the ticket to Amber 2008 was to be decided in a blitz play-off.
Outing: Rising stars Negi, Karjakin, Stellwagen, accompanied by chaperone
Yasser Seirawan (blue shirt), take a boat trip on Amsterdam's famous canals
("grachten")
Round ten: With a convincing 3½-1½ win against the Experience team the Rising Stars secured overall victory in the final round of the NH Chess Tournament. After ten rounds the youngsters triumphed 26½-23½. Sergey Karjakin finished first in the individual standings with a score of 7 out of 10. As the best player of the Rising Stars team the 17-year-old Ukrainian earned an invitation to the 2008 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament.
17-year-old Sergey Karjakin in his impressive last-round win over veteral
Alexander Beliavsky
In the final overall standings young (17 years old) Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine finished on top, clearing his nearest rival by a full point.
Sergey is rated 2678 and is ranked number 35 of all players in the world. On the Playchess server he is currently the second-highest rated player in blitz. Playchess has 215,000 registered members, with a total of 224 million (you better believe it) games played so far.
See you at the Amber tournament in Monaco: Sergey Karjakin
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