Sandipan Chanda dominates Dutch Open in Dieren

Sandipan Chanda dominates Dutch Open in Dieren

Report from Dieren by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal

One of the advantages of playing in the Netherlands is that you get to take part in continuous events one after the other. After the Leiden Open, which ended on 24th of July, next on agenda was the Dutch Open in Dieren that began after a day’s break, from the 26th of July.

The best way to reach Dieren from Leiden is by train. It takes you two hours and costs you around €20.

Dieren is a beautiful town located in the eastern Netherlands. With a population of just 15,000 you can hardly see people on the streets. It is a perfect place to have your mind at peace and play a strong chess tournament.

The Dutch Open 2016 sponsored by Condigne was held from the 26th of July to the 4th of August 2016 in the Theothorne Café in Dieren. This open event is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the country with a long standing tradition of 48 years. The schedule was perfect with one round a day that began at 1 p.m. and a rest day after five rounds. There were different category tournaments that took place (A, B, C) simultaneously with the Dutch Open. The cutoff rating for the main event was 2050 and the 58 participants included ten grandmasters, with Erwin l’Ami (2606) as the top seed.

The entrance to the tournament hall was through the Theothorne Cafe. This place was used by players to analyze their games with each other, and in general you could find chess enthusiasts sitting there all the time, sipping on a glass of beer and pondering over the complex positional decisions! However, one cannot really imagine the massive tournament hall which lies hidden underneath this cafe.

The beautiful and spacious playing hall which hosted 488 players from all over the world

The tournament was led right from the start until the end by Indian grandmaster Sandipan Chanda. Sandipan started the event as the third seed. He drew a completely winning position against the top seed Erwin l’Ami in the fourth round, but got his act together after the rest day by beating GM Dmitri Reindermann and GM Roeland Pruijssers.

GM Sandipan Chanda with his winner’s trophy and cash prize of €2,500. He performed at an Elo of 2741 and gained 19 Elo points.

The critical moment of the tournament was reached in the last round when Sandipan had the white pieces against GM Vyacheslav Ikonnikov. The grandmaster from West Bengal was on 6.5/8 and had a half point lead over four other players (l’Ami, Horvath, Khenkin and Ikonnikov). A normal reaction could have been to play it safe, make a draw, and secure the joint first spot at the very least. But Chanda decided to play a full-fledged game and emerged as the winner.

The crucial last round battle between Sandipan Chanda and Vyacheslav Ikonnikov was followed with great interest by the spectators

The game was an amazing topsy-turvy battle that could have gone either way. Let’s go through the moves in depth. However, before that here’s a position where you should pull out your chess board and pieces, set up the position and think over it for 25 minutes.

It’s White (Sandipan) to move. You can see that the knight on a3 and bishop on g2 are hampered because of the pawn chain b7-c6-d5. It is obvious that White has to break with c4. However, c4 right now is met with d5-d4. So White must bring his rook on d1. Which rook would you get to the d1 square and why? Mind you, Sandipan took nearly 25 minutes to find the right move. The reason: he needed to find something against a very strong black idea. Of course, I cannot spill the beans any further. Try your best at cracking Rad1 or Rfd1 problem and then let Sandipan explain you the nuances.

In this seven minute video Sandipan explains the answer to the above position and how he made his decision

When Sandipan lifted his rook to e5 with 22.Re5, it seemed as if the game would end in a few moves in his favour. However, Ikonnikov had a surprise up his sleeve and he went 22…Nxa4 and after 23.Rxg5 Nxc3 24.bxc3 f5 we reach the following position:

It is true that White is a piece up, but look at the complete discord in his position. The knight on a3 is stuck to the blockade of the a-pawn. The bishop on g2 is hampered by the b7 and c6 pawns and the rook on g5 and h4 are shut off on the wrong side. All in all the game became extremely exciting and any of three results were possible. In the end the Russian GM didn’t play exactly and Chanda emerged victorious.

Play uncompromising chess – that’s the secret of becoming a strong player

The spectator’s favourite was surely the top seed Erwin l’Ami (left), who has been coming to Dieren to play in the Dutch Open ever since he was a young kid.

The Dutch grandmaster started off well with three wins, the third one being against the in-form Roeland Pruijssers, who had recently won the Leiden Open. He was then held to three draws. In the last three rounds he managed to score 2.5/3 beating GMs Debashis Das and Dmitri Reindermann. The score of 7.0/9 was good enough to give him the second spot. However, one game that stands out from the rest was his 22 move miniature against Das.

Erwin and Debashis try to analyze what went wrong for Black in the game

Before we go to the game here are two positions that you should think about:

It is a normal Queen’s Gambit Accepted position that has been reached 142 times in the past. The previously played moves here have been Rac1 or Ne5. But Erwin came up with something very interesting. Can you find it? Do not take more than five minutes for this decision.

L’Ami’s (White’s) attack seems to be breaking through here. But Black has an excellent defensive resource. And mind you it is the only one! I can completely understand that you would want to skip the position and go over to check the answer. However, if you really want to improve as a chess player we recommend that you take 30 minutes on the clock and have a deep think here. How should Black defend? And after you are done thinking then let Erwin explain you the answer in the video below.

Erwin L’Ami explains the answer to both the positions given above in this video

L’Ami is a hardcore 1.d4 player. However, recently he has recorded two DVDs for ChessBase – A Gambit Guide for the Open Games after 1.e4 Vol. 1 and 2. We ask Erwin the reason for not playing 1.e4 and what he thinks about Fischer’s statement “1.e4 – best by test!”

The proud parents of Erwin – Wout and Eef l’Ami

L’Ami is so accustomed to playing in Dieren that he travels to the tournament hall on his bike. The picture on the left was taken in 2016, while the one on the right is from Alina l’Ami’s beautiful report on the Dutch Open in 2014. It must be mentioned that cycling is the best way to travel in the Netherlands, and the number of cycles in the country are far more than the number of people.

GM Igor Khenkin is a class act. Just four years ago, that is in 2012, he had a rating of 2675. He has drawn against the best players in the world like Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, etc. and beaten top guys like Wang Hao, Judit Polgar, Kasimdzhanov and many more. And now his Elo is down to 2553. What happened? As Igor describes, “I see a lot more than my opponents and that is one of my biggest problems.” More often than not he is unable to make quick decisions, lands in time trouble, and makes a lot of draws against lower rated opposition. However, in this tournament things went very well for him. His last round win against Csaba Horvath was especially nice. It was a case of a high class player coming to the board with extreme willpower and wanting to win at all costs.

This win helped Igor Khenkin score 7.0/9 and finish third at the event.

What is the secret of winning strong open tournaments? You analyze your game for fun with your friends after the closing ceremony! Mind you, the drinks were on Sandipan!

Final Standings

• Results and rankings of all 58 players (generated by Swiss Master for Windows)

Part II of this article with details about other prize winners, a beautiful composition by Yochanan Afek and impressions of the city will follow shortly.

Pictures by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN You can use ChessBase 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.