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You may have never heard before of Roosendaal, a small city in the southern Netherlands. I for one would have probably said the same, if I wouldn’t have passed through it on my way to Belgium, since it’s the last train stop on the Dutch territory. Overshadowed by its bigger and more famous brothers like: Amsterdam, Haarlem, Groningen, Maastricht, Delft, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag, Leiden (the list seems endless, a mind-boggling concept, considering the size of this small nation!) Roosendaal sneaks by unseen, unheard, unnoticed. And I believe it’s unjustly so.
A walk in the city with GMs Vladimir Chuchelov and Loek van Wely
On the market square one can still admire those typical Dutch step-roofed
houses
Traditional charisma of the St. Jans Church and the old city hall
However, nothing remains the same forever and here’s why: between 16th and 19th of August, the heart of the Dutch chess (and not only) was beating faster nowhere else than in this cozy little town from North Brabant.
The start of the event, whith 24 live boards are on the stage
Commentary by IM Yochanan Afek and GM Daniel Stellwagen
The main culprit was the LBV weekend tournament, won by Sergey Tiviakov with five points out of six games. The Ukrainian Grandmaster, Martyn Kravtsiv, had also a good performance, sharing first place with the same number of points. As for the less fortunate ones there is always an excuse: double rounds and late evening/early morning games – a lethal combination for the faint-hearted.
| No. | Title | Player | FED | Rtng | Club | Pts |
| 1 | GM | Tiviakov Sergei | NED | 2674 | Groningen | 5.0 |
| GM | Kravtsiv Martyn | UKR | 2582 | Lviv Chess Club | 5.0 |
|
| 3 | GM | Van Den Doel Erik | NED | 2571 | Charlois Europoort | 4.5 |
| 4 | GM | Winants Luc | BEL | 2543 | SO Rotterdam | 4.5 |
| 5 | GM | Pruijssers Roeland | NED | 2514 | Accress Apeldoorn | 4.5 |
| 6 | IM | Bosboom Manuel | NED | 2383 | Het Zwarte Schaap | 4.5 |
| 7 | FM | Broekmeulen Jasper | NED | 2410 | HMC Calder | 4.5 |
| 8 | GM | Kasparov Sergey | BLR | 2490 | Atus Wiez | 4.5 |
| 9 | WGM | Muhren Bianca | NED | 2307 | De Stukkenjagers | 4.5 |
| 10 | GM | L'Ami Erwin | NED | 2628 | En Passant | 4.5 |
| 11 | IM | Martens Martin | NED | 2431 | SO Rotterdam | 4.0 |
| 12 | GM | Haslinger Stewart G | ENG | 2524 | Formby | 4.0 |
| 13 | GM | Reinderman Dimitri | NED | 2583 | Ricoh Purmerend | 4.0 |
| 14 | GM | Swinkels Robin | NED | 2482 | De Combinatie | 4.0 |
| 15 | IM | Van Der Stricht Geert | BEL | 2403 | HMC Calder | 4.0 |
| 16 | WGM | L'Ami Alina | ROU | 2372 | En Passant | 4.0 |
| 17 | FM | Erwich Frank | NED | 2359 | Leiden | 4.0 |
| 18 | WGM | Paulet Iozefina | ROU | 2234 | Groningen | 4.0 |
| 19 | GM | Van Der Wiel John | NED | 2419 | Discendo Discimus | 4.0 |
| 20 | Admiraal Miguoel | NED | 2293 | Chesscool | 4.0 |
The winner of the tournament celebrating his victory at the town square
Erratum: it's a bronze rooster dedicated to the event
The winner with 5.0/6 points and the best tie-break: GM Sergei Tiviakov
of Holland
In tenth place with 4.5 points: GM Erwin l'Ami, NDE, rated 2628
18th: WGM Iozefina Paulet from Romania – it was wonderful to see my friends
again!
19th: GM John Van Der Wiel with 4.0/6, NED, rated 2419
John won the brilliancy prize, handed to him by colleague Jan Smeets, for
his first round game
The winners GM Martyn Kravtsiv, UKR, 2582, and Sergey Tiviakov with the trophy
And yet, the city has been flooded (no worries, the country has the water level under control) with enthusiastic chess lovers; almost 200 players were present which is a great achievement for the first time the tournament is being organized! But I am not surprised at all judging by the amount of work and dedication the Roosendaal team has invested in their event.
Training session for the Dutch team before the Chess Olympiad, under Vladimir
Chuchelov, the Dutch national trainer.
Furthermore I will spare you the technical details which were clearly right in place and mention the part that I enjoyed most: the warmth. I can honestly say I have never seen such joyful, full of life and happy to help you organizers! I can explain it only by the love they had for what they were doing. And the Dutch gezellig way became rather contagious. Almost nobody was rushing to go back to the hotel after the evening round, prolonging the nice atmosphere over a beer or two (or three), commenting and analyzing and talking…
Wardrobe suggestions for next year's event, in a Roosendaal shop window
So if the history or the architecture or the cultural details didn’t succeed in making Roosendaal a must, the new chess wave (which has the tendency in turning into a tsunami) will surely do its job!
LinksYou can also use ChessBase 11 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. |
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