Roeland Pruijssers wins 10th Leiden Open

Roeland Pruijssers wins 10th Leiden Open

Report by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal from Leiden

What is the significance of the above picture (by Lubomir Kavalek)? We see Boris Spassky watching a game between Mikhail Botvinnik and Jan Hein Donner. Apart from the fact that you can see two World Champions in it, this was the last tournament of Botvinnik’s chess career. It was a quadruple round robin tournament held in 1970 between the former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, the then reigning World Champion Boris Spassky, the tournament expert Bent Larsen and the strongest Dutch player Jan Hein Donner. And can you guess where this tournament was held?

The four great champions – Larsen, Donner, Botvinnin and Spassky – matched their wits against each other in Leiden, in 1970!

The beautiful city of Leiden, which has formed on an artificial hill at the confluence of the rivers Old and New Rhine, has a rich tradition of chess

The Leiden University is the oldest in the Netherlands. It has seven faculties, over 50 departments and enjoys an outstanding international reputation

Although Leiden could boast of such a strong tournament, where Spassky, Botvinnik and Larsen participated, it was a one-off affair. In order to develop the chess scene in the city there was a need for a strong tournament to be held on a regular basis.

In 2007 Jan Bey, along with friends, decided to stage a strong international open in Leiden

The sheer determination of Jan Bey and his organizational team made sure that the event was held every year, and in 2016 it reached its tenth edition. The importance of this tournament cannot be underestimated. In a city with a population of around 120 thousand people the Leiden Chess Tournament is making sure that new talents are unearthed and nurtured.

The organizers made sure that the tenth edition would be a memorable one by inviting two Dutch legends to participate in the tournament: Loek van Wely and Peng Zhaoqin

After our tournament in Porticcio, Corsica which ended in the first week of July, Amruta and I made our way to the Leiden Open. The easiest way to reach Leiden is to take a flight to Amsterdam and from the Schiphol airport you have a direct train that reaches Leiden Central station in 15 minutes.

We reached a week prior to the start of the tournament. This gave us enough time to get acclimatized to the place and weather. On a Saturday morning when Amruta and I were strolling through the unusually crowded and lively market of Leiden, we saw a man in his fifties walking with his wife. I tried to recollect the face. I had seen him somewhere. In fact I had even written a report on him. And then it struck me! Predrag Nikolic! It was such a joy to see this famous GM in the flesh.

There were five days left for the start of the Leiden Chess Tournament but we had already met an extremely strong chess player on the streets of Leiden. Predrag Nikolic has beaten almost every elite player including Karpov, Anand, Topalov, Kamsky, you name it, in the past. He and his wife now live in Leiderdorp in Leiden.

The 10th Leiden Chess Tournament was held from the 15th to 25th of July 2016. It was a nine-round Swiss tournament with the participation of 64 players in the A category (>1900). There was also a B category tournament for players below the Elo of 1950. The schedule of the tournament was excellent with a single round each day and a rest day after five rounds. The time control was one and a half hour for forty moves, with an addition of thirty minutes, and an increment of 30 seconds from move one. Eight grandmasters and eight International Masters and players from fourteen countries took part in the event. The prize fund of the A category was €5,500 with a first prize of €1,750.

Loek van Wely with his newly born son Nicholas. The little guy is just six weeks old

King Loek was the favourite to win the tournament. With a rating of 2662, he was the strongest player at the event by quite a margin. Loek came with his wife and his son – it was some sort of a vacation for the family. On the one hand, with complete focus and concentration van Wely could have won the tournament, but on the other it is quite hard to be away from your cute little six week old son! In spite of all this, things were going quite smoothly for him during the first half. He was on 4.0/5 and had drawn his games against second and third seeds Evgeny Postny and Sandipan Chanda. The sixth round was the turning point for van Wely as he lost a complex battle to the eighteen-year-old talented Dutch youngster Thomas Beerdsen.

An entertaining and fearless player – Thomas Beerdsen

Loek van Wely speaks about his performance in the Leiden Open, how it feels to be a father, how life has changed and what the chances are of the Netherlands winning a medal at this year’s Olympiad. (Spoiler alert: Another top Dutch GM is soon to be a father!)

In the last round van Wely was up against Roeland Pruijssers. A win would have guaranteed him the first place. However, Pruijssers managed to hold a draw and emerged as the champion with 7.0/9.

The Champion! Roeland Pruijssers has played the Leiden Open twice – in 2009 and 2016, and both times was numero Uno!

After the event we asked Pruijssers about his favourite game from the tournament: “I would like to share with the readers of ChessBase my game against Van Wely, the game which helped me secure the tournament victory. It's not my favourite – that one would be my win with the white pieces against Evgeny Postny. Loek is a many times Dutch champion and has played against all the top players around the world. So, I am quite proud to have made a draw against him in the crucial last round with black.”

Roeland Pruijssers played a fine tournament scoring wins over GM Evgeny Postny, IM Eric Rosin and FM Hugo Ten Hertog. He never really thought that he would win the event, as he had recently decided to stop his professional chess career and start studies in psychology in Utrecht. However, chess has its own way of rewarding the people who have worked hard in the past: you win when you expect it the least! Here’s Roeland’s win over Evgeny Postny:

The winner of the A group, Roeland Pruijssers, chief sponsor of the event Roel Piket, CEO of Adhoc Solide and Adrian Mensing, winner of the B group

Final Standings (after nine rounds)

The Israeli team is going to participate in the Olympiad without its top players, most notably Boris Gelfand. Evgeny Postny (above) will be representing his country in Baku. With this tournament in Leiden and the next one in Kavala, Greece, he would like to be in the best shape for the Olympiad. However, in Leiden things didn’t work out so well and he finished on seventh place with 6.0/9.

Born in 1981, Evgeny Postny has reached a maximum rating of 2674. He has worked as an author for ChessBase since CBM 81 (2001) and has produced articles on an extensive range of openings.

The biggest find of the tournament was surely Hugo ten Hertog. He was the joint winner scoring 7.0/9.
In the end he had to settle for the second position because of the tiebreak rules.

Hugo beat GM Peng Zhaoqin, GM Milos Pavlovic and FM Thomas Beerdsen with draws against Postny and Ikonnikov. His performance was sufficient to get him his maiden grandmaster norm. It was only because of his loss to the eventual winner Roeland Pruijssers that he finished second. Here is one of Hugo’s fine victories over Milos Pavlovic.

Robby Kevlishvili had a very successful tournament and scored 6.5/9, finishing fifth

Robby’s win against GM Sandipan Chanda was quite impressive. He dominated the game right from the start and finished it without any glitches.

GM Sandipan Chanda from India was the third seed at the event and finished third

Although Chanda suffered a surprising loss to Kevlishvili, he fought back well and won the all-important last round encounter against Csaba Horvath of Hungary. Thanks to this victory he was able to score 6.5/9. Apart from the winner Roeland Pruijssers, Chanda was the only grandmaster in the event who could gain rating points.

– Part two, "A breath of fresh air", will follow soon –

Photos by Amruta Mokal

Links Official tournament site All games of the Open + Crown You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.