Euwe tournament Amsterdam
Exciting last round: Peng wins group 1, van Kampen group 2
At the start of the last round all group 1 players stood level. Only Peng (Foto),
unhappy about her first game against Van der Sterren, managed a convincing win,
obtaining outright first place. In group 2 Van Kampen trumped Conquest in time
trouble and he also was the sole winner of his group.
Van der Sterren almost equalised against Peng with ... Bb4 and ... a5 in a Queen's
Indian opening. But 16. ... e4 turned out to be an ill-fated move. Van der Sterren had
missed White's reply 17. Nf4, and then played the decidedly wrong 17. ...f6. After this
Black's position was beyond repair. Peng was happy with her revenge after having
been reproached in round 2 for taking a draw too quickly.
In the second game in group 1, a King's Indian, between Cramling and
Olafsson, it looked as if Cramling had the initiative on both wings. Olafsson defended
himself resourcefully and even reached an endgame with a pawn up. But Cramling
had active play and didn't allow any winning attempt the game ending in a draw.
In group 2 Conquest played 4. ... Nge7 in the Spanish, currently a popular
variation. Van Kampen was able to rely on his preparation with Grandmaster
Sokolov. As he was sure Conquest would surprise him anyway he hadn't prepared
anything in particular, preferring a good night's sleep instead. In the middle game Van
Kampen got the edge and Conquest consumed a lot of time on the clock to work up
some counterplay. Van Kampen thought for a long time he had everything under
control but got worried when he couldn't play 23. g4 because of 23. ... Be2. When
Conquest played 30. ... Qa1. 31. Qb1, Qa4 instead of the better 30. ... Nb5 Van
Kampen (Foto unten) dealt the decisive blow with 32. Nc6 winning at least the
exchange. Conquest resigned after reaching the time control, disappointed that his
original play had yielded so few points.
In the other game Arakhamia-Grant gave it a go with black. She offered Socko
an exciting game with 1.d4, Nf6, 2.c4, c5. When Socko avoided this with 3.e3, Black
easily obtained an equal position. After 20 moves the major pieces were exchanged
and a drawn end game was all that was left. After about ten further moves it was
indeed agreed drawn.
Closing event
The prizegiving for the Euwe Memorial tournament took place in De Kring, a
location already special on account of the many chess players and artists who made
the club both famous and infamous. On sunday evening the setting was even more
special as visitors were immeditaely confronted upon entry with a chess performance
by Jennifer Shahade of her creation of Naked Chess, this time as a simul against three
chess playing, nude artists' models. The lighting created dramatic shadows against the
back wall while Shahade walked from board to board in her beautifully stylized dress.
Against this back-drop Hans Böhm smoothly introduced the audience to the various
acts. ICGA president David Levy reminisced about his conversations with Max Euwe
on the future of computer chess. Hans Ree and Alexander Münninghof sang the Euwe
March striking exactly the right degree of solemnity. Tex de Wit proved humor and
chess certainly mix well, opening his stand-up act with thanks to tournament director
Monique van de Griendt for meeting his exacting pre-conditions, which had
apparently included having three nudes next to him on stage playing chess!
At the end the tournament participants accepted their prizes to loud applause. Thanks
to them it was a fantastic tournament. The organisation therefore hopes that the Max
Euwe Tournament will take place again in the near future.