Seventh Leiden Chess Tournament

Tournament report by WIM Ioana Smaranda Padurariu

This is the seventh edition of LCT organized by Jan Bey. Over 20 titled players participated, from which nine were grandmasters. The tournament started on July 12 and ended on July 19. It was a nine-round Swiss and was held in the Mind Games Center of Leiden. People from twelve countries came to the lovely Dutch city. During weekdays the games started at 19.00h, so that people with a job would not have to take any free days. For players from abroad this offered ample opportunities to go sightseeing.

Peter Prohaszka started furiously with four out of four but was beaten by Deep Sengupta in round five and finished on fifth place.

Round 8 saw another critical game. S.P. Sethuraman (above left) won his game against Deep Sengupta (right). He also managed to win his final round and took the tournament on tiebreak. This is a good warming-up for the next tournament that they will play in Dieren.

All smiles before the game, but then no mercy!

Top final standings (after nine rounds)

• Full results and standings for 75 players

Norms were scored by Arthur Pijpers (IM norm) and Sabrina Chevannes (WIM norm).

Deep Sengupta vs. Predrag Nikolic in round six (1-0 in 97 moves)

Yang-Fan Zhou, who recently scored his first GM norm vs. Artem Iljin – draw

Arthur Pijpers (left) managed to secure his second IM norm by drawing
Ilja Zaragatski, who will hopefully have the GM title at the next FIDE Board

This is the third time that David Howell played in the LCT. The winner
of the last edition had a tough time this year and finished on eighth place.

Ladies that participated in the A tournament

Leonore Braggaar from the Netherlands, rated 2080, President of the
junior chess club "Op Eigen Wieken" in Leiden, finished with 4.0/9 points

Picture 8 – Adinda Serdijn from the Netherlands, 2048, 3.5/9

WFM Sabrina Chevannes from England, 2136, finised at 4.5/9.
Sabrina is a popular author of ChessBase DVDs for novices

WIM Ioana Smaranda Padurariu, rated 2208, 5.0/9. Ioana is a chess coach from Romania, currently living in the Netherlands. She has studied physiotherapy and is actually me, writing this article!

WCM Yelizaveta Orlova from Canada, 1942, 3.5/9

A tough game in group B between Fond Li Calje and Eva Van Harten

The closing ceremony of Group B: Jan Bey (organizer of Leiden Open Tournament), Roel Piket (main sponsor of the tournament), Marco De Mooij, Francky Deketelaere and Jan Van der Knaap (they shared 1st place with 7.0/9)

Roel Piket and the players of the A Group that shared fouth place, with 6.0/9 points: David Howell, Vladimir Epishin, Arthur Pijpers, Jochen Dahm, Ijia Zaragatski, Peter Prohaszka, Ramil Hasangatin and Luis Javier Bernal Moro

Sabrina was very happy to score her second WIM norm

There was a special "Lucky 7" prize: you had to guess who is going to end in seventh place. Above is a list with the candidates that people voted for.

Epishin finished in seventh place and the winner of Lucky 7 was Arthur Pijpers!

If you ever go to the Netherlands you definitely have to try "stroopwafels" ...

... and, second to none, Dutch cheese!

The great Dutch painter Rembrandt (first names: Harmenszoon van Rijn) was born in Leiden in 1606, very close to Weddesteeg Square, which was renamed Rembrandtplaats (Rembrandt Place) in 2006 to commemorate his 400th anniversary. [Photo above: Wikicommons]

The Square has been completely redesigned and has an artwork by Stephan Balkenhol (Germany) showing a young man looking at an easel with a bronze relief of a self-portrait of Rembrandt, completed in Leiden in 1629.

Next year the LCT will take place from 11 to 20 July. Hope to see you there!

Photos: WIM Ioana Smaranda Padurariu

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN 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.