Fontys Chess Tournament Tilburg 1997 |
The first round of the second edition of
the Fontys tournament was one of little excitement.
Lautier - Polgar were the first to shake hands. Joel tried to weaken Black's Queenside
pawns by exchanging his nice Bishop for Judit's Knight on c6. Judit gave a pawn for which
she got some initiative, however both players called it quits after 17 moves. The analyses
afterwards lasted longer than the game itself. The result between Shirov and Piket lasted
a little longer. In a Spanish variation which was popular around 1950-1960, Shirov won a
pawn. Unfortunately it wasn't much and a draw was agreed upon after Piket equalized the
material score.
The third draw was between Peter Svidler and Peter Leko. Svidler surely wants to improve
last year's score (9 draws, 2 losses) and was off to a promising start. The Russian had a
wonderful position after the opening, which resulted in winning first one pawn, then
another. It was in time trouble that he overlooked something which gave Leko "The
Equalizer" his chance to save the game.
White: Michael Adams
White: Alexei Shirov
"Alkmaar cheese market" costumes. Each player picked a cheese which had their lot number taped on the bottom. The ceremony was concluded with the sound of Hoogovens Chess Tune. This tune has been used the last few years during the Hoogovens tournaments in Wijk aan Zee - the Netherlands, and has become a tune well recognized by the players indicating the round is about to start. After the first day of this three day event, one Dutchman and one American are leading the field. Jan Timman played his two Dutch countrymen in the first two rounds. Against Loek van Wely, he achieved a comfortable position out of the opening but was outplayed in the middle game. During the first time trouble the GM from Amsterdam rescued himself with a nice Knight sacrifice which led to a drawish endgame. However an over ambitious winning attempt almost backfired. Timman was saved by Loek's time trouble in which the young Dutch player missed a simple win with 46.Qxb6. Instead he put his Queen en prise when he was down to his final seconds. Jan's second game of the day was less exciting. Piket held more space but Timman had the Bishop pair. The balance was never disturbed and a draw was the friendly outcome. "It is tough to play two games a day", Piket said afterwards. In his game against Yermo earlier, Jeroen had sacrificed a pawn on d5 for active play but 20...Rc1 was good enough to ensure the half point a few moves later. Alex Yermolinsky joined the lead by defeating Yasser Seirawan "who saw some ghosts" in a tricky rook ending. Yasser had been doing well with a victory over Tal Shaked in round 1. In that game 23...f5 had been too weakening, according to the GM from Seattle. The 1997 youth World Champion got into big time trouble which caused him to make a few more mistakes. Tal exceeded the time limit in a lost position on move 39. Shaked wasn't much more fortunate in his second game of the day. The opening went quite well and Van Wely's 11...Qb4 was a mistake. Tal returned the favor with 16.Bc4 after which he quickly obtained a worse position. Van Wely sacrificed the exchange to create a pawn center which Shaked was unable to stop. White: Alex Yermolinsky
