No fewer than six players finished in a shared first place in the Amsterdam Chess Open's A group. Tournament leaders FMs Tim Grutter and Midas Ratsma drew quickly and were caught by GM Erik van den Doel, IMs Sharan Rao, Dagur Ragnarsson and FM Maurice Schippers. Grutter claimed the first-place trophy on tiebreak.
Round 5
One of the early victories on Sunday morning was scored by one of our four streamers. FM Anna-Maja Kazarian (annamaja op Twitch) was quick to beat IM Barry Brink, who did not respond well to White's new move 11.Rd2 and then faced a devastating bishop sacrifice.
Kazarian-Brink
ACO (05), 2024
11.Rd2
More common is 11.Qd2 Bb4 12.Bd4, played e.g. in Grandelius-Carlsen, Wijk aan Zee 2022. Black can now equalize with 11...Bc5 but instead he makes a big mistake.
11...h6? 12.Bxb5!
Winning on the spot.
12...Pf6
12...axb5 is no fun either but perhaps more tenacious: 13.Nxb5 Qd8 (13...Qc6 14.Na7 Qc7 15.Bf4!) 14.Qa7! Bc6 15.Bb6 Qg5 16.Qa6 Rb8 17.Nc7+.
13.Ba4 e5 14.Qa7 Bb4 15.Bb6 Qb8 16.Qxb8 Rxb8 17.Bc7
Another pawn will drop so Black resigned.
FM Anna-Maja Kazarian (during her afternoon game). Foto: Bas Beekhuizen.
Tournament leader FM Tim Grutter dropped his first half point against IM Rao Sharan on top board, which gave FM Midas Ratsma the chance to catch him in first place. The member of chess club Voorschoten won convincingly against CM Christopher Brookes, who played an old line of the Russian GM Alexey Dreev (6...Bd7) in a Classical Sicilian. Soon after the queens were traded, Brookes made the decisive mistake.
17...Bc6?
The wrong square! 17...Be6 18.Nxb5 exf6 19.Bg3 Bc5 was quite playable.
18.Bg3
The problem is that Black cannot really take on f6 anymore and so he's basically lost here.
18...b4 19.Nd5 Bxd5 20.Rxd5 e6 21.Rd7 and White won.
Round 6
In hindsight it wasn't surprising that leaders Grutter and Ratsma would draw their game in no time. We have attractive prizes after all, and this way both of them secured shared first. The question was: How many rivals would they have to share it with?
The first to join the leaders was IM Rao Sharan, who was successful with a Stonewall type of setup against Rik van Rootselaar's Catalan. The game was decided on move 22.
Van Rootselaar-Rao
ACO (06, 2024)
22.Qe3?
The only move was 22.Qe4 but Black will reach a better endgame with 22...Bc6!.
22...Bc6!
Trading an important defender. It's over.
23.Rh1 Qc2 24.Rxh8 Bxh8 25.Bxc6 bxc6 26.Qc3 Qh7 0-1
IM Dagur Ragnarsson was the next to knock on the door of the winners. The Icelandic IM was too strong for Jeroen van den Berg, a player that should not be confused with the Tata Steel Chess Tournament's tournament director who has the same name.
Van den Berg-Ragnarsson
ACO (06), 2024
White has just castled queenside, where the king is not too safe either. It will soon become clear why.
24...g5! 25.Ng6 g4 26.Rhh1 Bg7!
The bishop is heading for the c1–h6 diagonal with tempo, a killer idea.
27.Ne5 Qf5 28.f4 gxf3 29.Nxf3 Re6 30.Qd2 Bh6 31.Ng5 Rg8 and Black won.
FM Maurice Schippers was the fourth name to reach the highest score of 5/6 by beating Prajit Sai Kumar. This way, he also finished first among the players representing the Greater Amsterdam Chess Federation, thus becoming eligible for a Dutch national championship 2025 qualifier tournament. He must have enjoyed that last move!
Schippers-Kumar ACO (06), 2024
Black is already in some trouble but because he completely misses White's threat, his next move will be his last...
30...Qf6? 31.Qxh7! and mate on the next move.
Last but certainly not least (on the contrary), it was top seed GM Erik van den Doel who clinched the final top spot. His position out of the opening wasn't great, but in the end, his experience got him through as he defeated Kazarian:
Van den Doel-Kazarian
ACO (06), 2024
27...f5?
With 27...Nd5 Black simply picks up the d-pawn and she would be the one playing for a win. 28.f4!
Kazarian must have missed this intermediate move.
28...Qh4
28...Qxf4 29.Qe7+.
29.Qc3+ Kg8 30.Nf6+ Kf7 31.Rd6! White was in complete control and won the game on move 40.
Van den Doel-Kazarian. Photo: Bas Beekhuizen.
The six winners shared the prizes for the top five places and each received €708,33.
The other three groups did have sole winners. In the B group this was Mikko Rondo from Estonia, who scored 5.5/6, good for the full €1000. The score of 5.5/6 was enough for first place in the C group as well. Amrit Shakya from Nepal earned €750 there. Sam Ritchie won the D group by being the only player of the 500 participants to win all of his six games. That earned him €500.
FM Arno Bezemer was the highest finisher among Caïssa members in the A group, in 32nd place with 3.5/6. In the B group this was Evert-Jan Straat (eighth with 4.5/6), in C this was Martin Blom (27th with 3.5/6) and in D Chris Verheijden (71st with 3/6).
Caïssa's partnership also meant that one player of the club would be featured on a DGT (live) board. In rounds 5 and 6 these were Felix Kuijken and Hugo Sommer. This way, friends and family could follow them from home but unfortunately, both of them lost!
We'll finish this report by looking ahead. The dates for next year's tournament are already known: October 24, 25 and 26, 2025. See you then!