Hoogeveen Starts, Youth Beats Experience

Mickey Adams won Dortmund and finished second in Bilbao to reach the world's top 10, but on Sunday he surprisingly lost his first game in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands to Robin van Kampen in the first round of the Univé Tournament's Crown Group. The other game also finished successfully for the younger player: Wesley So beat Loek van Wely. In the Open, Maxim Rodshtein, Erwin l'Ami, Michal Krasenkow, Viktor Moskalenko and Felix Levin still have a hundred percent score.

Photos courtesy of the tournament website

The 17th Univé Chess Tournament takes place 18-26 October, 2013 in the town hall of Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. Univé (pronounced "U" as in "cure", "ni" as the knights who say "ni" and "vé" as in "play") is an insurance company. As always there is a Crown Group, an Open Group and two Amateur Groups. At the town hall you can enjoy commentary while the games are also broadcast live, with streaming video.

The Crown Group this year has GMs Michael Adams (2753, England), Wesley So (2706, Philippines), Loek van Wely (2693, Netherlands) and Robin van Kampen (2607, Netherlands). They play a double round robin with games on Sunday-Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday. 

In the first round Robin van Kampen, in the Crown Group the lowest rated player, managed to beat top seed and world number 10 in the live ratings, Michael Adams. The Englishman called his choice of the French Defence “...a bad choice, nothing more, nothing less. I thought he wouldn't expect it, which was true but he did know it.”

Van Kampen: “The French happens to be one of my favourite openings to play against. He could have known that because I've built up a good score as White. Besides, a while ago I analyzed the line he played with the computer. If White knows it, it's almost unplayable for Black.”

Currently Loek van Wely is playing only a few tournaments a year, so especially for the Dutch fans it's nice to see him back behind the chess board. "KingLoek" lost his first round game, even though the opening was OK for Black.“I guess I underestimated his chances. I could have made a draw in timetrouble but my plan b7-b5-b5 only helped him.”

Maxim Rodshtein, Erwin l'Ami, Michal Krasenkow, Viktor Moskalenko and Felix Levin started with three wins in the Open Group. Loek van Wely's wife Lorena Zepeda drew a GM in the first round:

Bonno Pel (2291) beat Filip Pancevski (2493) with Van Geet's 1.Nc3 (which often turns into a regular opening, like here):

Michal Krasenkow used lots of pins in his third round game:

Univé 2013 | Open Group | Round 3 standings (top 30)

(Full standings here)