The third round on the 3rd November we played in Sas van Gent. Since they did not bring their best player, GM Ikonnikov, we had a rating advantage on almost every board. Nevertheless, we expected a tough fight, because Sas van Gent has a lot of promising young players in their team and they managed to win the first two rounds.

Robert, playing on the first board with white, had to battle the Sicilian Najdorf. He opted for the Classical line with 6.Be2. A double-edged position arose, in which white was attacking on the queenside and black was looking for a counterattack on the kingside. Robert managed to emerge with an advantage out of the complications and consequently, exchanged pieces in order to head towards a favorable ending. In this ending, it seems that he had quite reasonable chances to play for a win. Unfortunately, in time trouble his opponent was able to conduct a nasty tactic which enabled him to escape to an opposite-colored bishop ending. Although Robert was one pawn up in that ending, there were no winning chances left and soon after the time control, the game was drawn.

Ruud, playing second board with black, had to fight against an early g3 in reply to his Nimzo/Benoni setup as it is suggested in the famous opening-repertoire series by Boris Avrukh. Ruud responded in Bogo-Indian style with the bishop check on b4 and equalized rather comfortable. When his opponent pushed too hard by trying to win a pawn, Ruud managed to get a favorable position after having won back the pawn. In the resulting ending, his opponent had a passed pawn on c6, but this was comfortable blocked and soon was going to fall. However, in the meantime, Ruud’s opponent was able just to create enough counterplay to draw even with one pawn down in a bishop vs. knight minor-piece ending.

Thomas on the third board was faced with the Caro-Kann defense. Since he had covered Isolated Queen Pawn (IQP) positions in great detail in his book, he consequently headed for that kind of position by playing 2.c4. His opponent quite skillfully managed to fight against the IQP but then took a slightly risky decision by taking Thomas’ a2 pawn with his queen. He could have justified the pawn grab with accurate play, but missed the change to neutralize Thomas’ initiative. As a result, Thomas got real compensation for his pawn and the position became quite difficult to defend for his opponent. Finally, in time trouble he allowed Thomas to conclude the game with a nice queen sacrifice.

Playing board four, Li also had to fight against an opponent who relied on Avrukh’s opening repertoire. Li decided to enter the Catalan opening, but his opponent was well prepared and managed to maintain a slight pull after the opening. Li tried to relieve the pressure by a queen exchange, but this resulted in an ending in which Li had continuously problems with his c-pawn on the half-open file. Although Li defended very hard and inventively, his opponent managed to convert that advantage into victory at the end.

On board five, Lars played the solid English opening, but his opponent obviously had no interest in a slow maneuvering game. Instead, he opted for a King’s Indian setup and immediately created a dangerous attack on the kingside. It seemed that Lars was in serious trouble, but he kept a calm head and defended bravely. His stubborn resistance was finally rewarded in time trouble, when he managed to turn the tables completely by winning two pawns and exchanging all the heavy pieces and in doing so, neutralizing the opponent’s attack. The resulting minor-piece ending with two pawns up looked very promising, but now his opponent started to defend very well. Running out of time, Lars lost one of his two extra pawns and as a result he immediately had to concede a draw.

Florian, playing black on board six, tried to confuse his opponent with a bit unusual move-order in Kings Indian/Benoni style. (1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.e4 c5). This, however, backfired and he found himself in a Maroczy bind. He chose a slightly offbeat sideline and failed to play the variation in an accurate way. As a result, he got in a passive position and his desperate attempt to complicate matters with the …f5 counterpunch only made things worse. But then he managed to fight back by utilizing some piece of advice from Thomas’s book. First, he force an exchange of queens by a tactical trick (Part I: Exchange your way to victory) to relieve the pressure. The climax of the resulting rook and bishop vs. rook and knight ending was a race to queen a pawn, which he was able to decide in his favor by a zwischenzug, threatening mate with the rook on the 7th rank (Part II: Unleash your rooks). The opponent had to part with his bishop to prevent mate and and, being a piece down, wasn’t able to resist much longer.

Ewoud, playing board seven with white, also was faced with the Najdorf Sicilian. He decided to choose a much more aggressive system than Robert, the English Attack starting with 6.Be3. Consequently, the race, typical for that variation arose: White was trying to mate the black king on the kingside, while black was trying to attack the white majesty on the queenside. When it seemed that the black attack would come in quicker, Ewoud found a very interesting way to defend. He sacrificed two pawns and then shielded his king behind one of those on a1. That put a complete stop to the opponent’s attack and allowed Ewoud to crush his opponent convincingly on the kingside. Although his opponent managed to exchange queens and sacrificed an exchange to relieve the pressure, there was no escape and his king was mated on h7.

On board eight, Henk played the rather solid Sicilian Taimanov, but missed a tactical trick. The opponent took on b5 with his bishop and was able to win back the sacrificed piece immediately. Henk ended up two pawns down and, to make things even worse, his king was stuck in the center. Although he fought bravely, the material deficit and the bad king position proved to be too much of a burden and he had to admit defeat.

Frank playing white on board nine countered the Caro-Kann defense in the same way as Thomas. His opponent, however, did not threat the resulting IQP position as well as Thomas’ opponent. In consequence, Frank managed to carry out the typical d5 push rather easily and got a promising attacking position. He managed to enter black’s king position with his queen on h7 and soon the game was over.

On board ten, Ton countered 1.d4 with the Volga Gambit, which his opponent accepted. The opponent allowed Ton to destroy white’s pawn-structure on the kingside with …Bxf3. Therefore, the game did not continue in typical Volga patterns with black pressurizing white’s pawn-majority on the queenside. Instead, Ton focused on the kingside to make use of the weakened pawn-structure. His opponent tried to become active, and was tempted to win a pawn with check. But this was met with a strong and well-calculated counterattack, which enabled Ton to conclude the game with a very nice tactical finish.

So by winning 6½-3½, we were able to cause the first defeat to our opponents. We celebrated our victory in a Chinese restaurant close to the playing hall before we went on the large trip back home. By beating the leader, we have started to recover from the loss in round two, but to re-enter the race for the champion title, we would have to win the forthcoming matches as well.

HWP Sas van Gent (2309) – BSG (2366) 3½-6½
1. Thibaut Maenhout (2393) – Robert Ris (2430) ½-½
2. Koen Leenhouts (2460) – Ruud Janssen (2495) ½-½
3. Helmut Cardon (2392) – Thomas Willemze (2400) 0-1
4. Rein Verstraeten (2369) – Li Riemersma (2443) 1-0
5. Tom Piceu (2334) – Lars Ootes (2354) ½-½
6. Warre de Waele (2291) – Florian Grafl (2344) 0-1
7. Glen de Schampheleire (2379) – Ewoud de Groote (2294) 0-1
8. Renzo Ducarmon (2138) – Henk van der Poel (2244) 1-0
9. Simon Provoost (2199) – Frank Erwich (2354) 0-1
10. Hans Groffen (2131) – Ton van der Heijden (2301) 0-1

Florian Grafl