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The NH tournament, a confrontation between a team of five young ‘Rising Stars’ and a team of five ‘Experienced’ grandmasters, took place in the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in the centre of the Dutch city of Amsterdam, from August 20th to 30th, 2008. The event was a ‘Scheveningen’ tournament, which means that each player of one team played against each of the players of the other team. They did so twice, once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces.
Round eight: Wang Yue triumphs again and remains point ahead of Cheparinov
The Rising Stars dealt another blow to the Experience team. With two wins and
three draws they secured match victory as they increased their lead to 28-12
with only two rounds (and ten games) to go. In the race for the ticket to the
Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament, Wang Yue raised his score to a baffling
7½ out of 8 with an impressive win over Artur Jussupow. Still, nothing
has been decided yet, as Ivan Cheparinov, who also won his game, keeps following
at a one point’s distance.
Round nine: Experience posts first victory!
The Experience team finally pulled off what many fans had been hoping for for
so long. Thanks to a victory by Ljubomir Ljubojevic they scored their first
win. All other games were drawn, but all of them saw great fights. In the overall
standings the Rising Stars lead 30-15. With one round to go Wang Yue is still
leading in the race for the ticket to the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament,
one point ahead of Ivan Cheparinov. Today was certainly the Chinese player’s
lucky day. Whereas Cheparinov failed to convert a winning position against Bareev,
Wang Yue escaped from a lost position against Kortchnoi.
Erwin l'Ami kibitzes Ljubojevic-Caruana and Agdestein-Stellwagen in round
nine
In round nine Ivan Cheparinov had a winning position against Evegny Bareev
Meanwhile tournament leader Wang Yue wasn't doing so well against Viktor
Korchnoi
Interested party: Cheparinov watches keenly as Korchnoi applies pressure
on Wang
As the game proceeds more GMs (Artur Jussupow, Simen Agdestein) collect
Thank heavens for rook endings: Wang Yue after his narrow escape against
Korchnoi
Korchnoi's scoresheet
Round ten: Rising Stars beat Experience 33½-16½
In the tenth and last round of the NH Chess Tournament the Rising Stars defeated
the Experienced team 3½-1½. The final standings after ten rounds
are 33½-16½. With a short draw in his last game Wang Yue avoided
any risk and secured the coveted ticket to the 2009 Amber Rapid and Blindfold
Tournament in Nice. His score, 8½ points from 10 games was easily the
highest individual score in the short history of the NH Chess Tournament. In
2006 Magnus Carlsen qualified for Amber with 6½ from 10, one year later
Sergey Karjakin gathered 7 from 10. Ivan Cheparinov and a companion of his choice
will be invited to Nice to attend the Amber tournament as spectators. Fabiano
Caruana won the third extra prize, a Sony VAIO laptop computer.
The final score after ten rounds of the tournament was:
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The winner and 2009 Amber participant: Chinese GM Wang Yue
Missed overall victory by a point: Topalov second Ivan Cheparinov
In third place: fabulous Fabiano Caruana of Italy, who has just turned sixteen
It is noteworthy that the weakest Rising Star scored more than the strongest Experienced player, and that Wang Yue alone scored over 80% of the total of all five Experienced grandmasters. [This reminds us of a Skype taunt we received from Vishy Anand in the middle of the Olympic Games in Beijing: "Congratulations," he wrote, "Germany has just overtaken Phelps!"]
Looking at the above cross table we can see that Experienced managed a total of four wins, compared to 14 by the Rising Stars. 25 games were drawn. The top performer was, of course, Wang Yue. The Chinese GM scored a result one could reasonably expect from a player rated 2897. Ivan Cheparinov's performance was 2787; Fabiano Caruana, who has just turned 16, played like someone rated 2703. At the bottom end 77-year-old Viktor Korchnoi and former world-class GM Artur Jussupow both performed at a disappointing 2459 level.
The arbiter starts the clock in a Cheparinov game – a Fred Lucas experiment
with flash
Dutch Rising Star Daniel Stellwagen scored more than the best Experienced
player
Erwin l’Ami with 6.0/10 and a 2666 performance was only fourth in
the event
The highest-scoring Experienced player: Norwegian GM Simen Agdestein
Serbian GM Ljubomir Ljubojević after an extreme zeitnot-game against
Wang Hue
Wang explains the game against Ljubojevic to the specators in Amsterdam
The polyglot: Ljubojević, 58, is renowned for speaking a large number
of languages. For several decades ‘Ljubo’ was the most successful
player of Yugoslavia, one of the strongest and most popular chess countries.
In 1983 was number three in the world and in his long career he has
has defeated almost every top grandmaster, including world champions Garry Kasparov
(in blitz) and Anatoly Karpov.
For once out of his usual dazzling form: 77-year-old Viktor Korchnoi
Kramnik second Evgeny Bareev, two-time world championship candidate, who was
ranked fourth in the world in 1991 and 2003. Today he is best known as a member
of the team of Vladimir Kramnik when the latter defeated Kasparov in London
to become world champion. Bareev was responsible for finding playable lines
in the Berlin Defence, and his success in this was a factor in Kramnik's victory
over a profoundly frustrated Garry Kasparov.
German GM a chess trainer Artur Jussupov. In 1977 he became Junior World Champion
and in 1979 finished second in the Soviet championship. In the Candidates’
matches for the world championship he often played a prominent role and three
times he reached the semi-finals.
Everyone's favourite: Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi, who won the USSR Championship
51 years ago, lost the Candidates' Final match – de facto the world championship
– to Karpov 33 years ago, and played the same player in two full world
championship matches 30 and 27 years ago. Four years later the oldest of his
opponents (Erwin l'Ami) was born, the youngest (Fabiano Caruana) saw the light
of the world eleven years after the final Karpov-Korchnoi match.
For a long time Wang Yue, 21, stood in the shadow of Bu Xiangzhi, two years
older than him, and once was the youngest grandmaster in the world. But it was
Wang who last year was the first Chinese grandmaster to break the magical 2700
barrier. Today China can boast three over-2700 players (Bu, Wang and Ni Hua),
but the first to reach this milestone was Wang Yue.
All photos © Fred Lucas
Fred Lucas is specialised in business photography. He also runs a small portrait studio in the center part of Utrecht. In addition he occasionally photographs the mind sport chess. He is a member of BFN, the Dutch Association of Professional photographers. His photos have been published in industrial books and magazines, Dutch newspapers, magazines like Nieuwe Revu, international magazines and newspapers like Aftenposten, Le Monde and the New York Times.
Links
The games were broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse the PGN games. |
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