News
News
"KingLoek" Van Wely King At Dutch Lightning Championship

"KingLoek" Van Wely King At Dutch Lightning Championship

PeterDoggers
| 4 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Loek van Wely won the revived Dutch Lightning Championship last week in his home town Tilburg, The Netherlands. The Dutch GM beat GM Daniel Fridman 2-0 in a playoff.

About eight, nine years ago it was held several times, and after a long break it is back: the Dutch Lightning Championship. This spectacular tournament, where the players get only two minutes each per game, has been picked up by chess club King.

For this first edition of this revived event, the new organizers found a special location: the Willem II football stadium in Tilburg.

Quite a special venue for a chess event!

The tournament had two stages. The first stage consisted of four preliminary rounds, in groups of eight players, followed by final groups of 16 players. That means a total of 43 games on one day!

The top seed (by classical ratings) was GM Loek van Wely. The Dutch GM has lived in Tilburg for most of his life (and still does) and was the ambassador of the tournament.

Besides some blitz specialists, his main rivals were the other GMs present: Daniel Fridman, Benjamin Bok, Tanguy Ringoir, Roeland Pruijssers, Robin Swinkels, Vladimir EpishinAndrey Orlov and Felix Levin.

The preliminary rounds under way.

Normally IM Manuel Bosboom would be a serious rival as well, but he wasn't in great shape and didn't even make it to the top group in the final stage. Two GMs didn't make the cut either: Orlov and Levin.

Blitz specialist (and former winner) Manuel Bosboom didn't make it to the top group.

Your reporter gladly visited the tournament to make some videos. The reason? In 2006 I also visited the tournament in Apeldoorn, and shot some videos with a small photo camera. I had recently started a blog, and posted the videos there. It was the start of what would grow into ChessVibes, and eventually my move to Chess.com!

So, let's show some videos. The first is the clash between Van Wely and Fridman in one of the preliminary groups. These players would later face each other in the playoff final. 

The following game was played in the final round of the top group. GM Bok could have won the tournament outright if he'd beaten Van Wely, but it wasn't meant to be. Things were more or less equal until right before the end...

Fridman and Van Wely finished on the same number of points: 12 out of 15. This meant a playoff was needed to decide on the winner!

2015 Dutch Lightning Championship| Top Group, Final Standings

# Title Name FED Rating Score
1 GM Van Wely Loek NED 2653 12
x GM Fridman Daniel GER 2637 12
3 GM Bok Benjamin NED 2561 11,5
4 GM Ringoir Tanguy BEL 2526 9,5
5 FM Schoorl Rob NED 2313 9
6 GM Pruijssers Roeland NED 2507 8,5
Kabos Tobias NED 2280 8,5
8 GM Swinkels Robin NED 2482 8
GM Epishin Vladimir RUS 2579 8
FM De Ruiter Danny NED 2298 8
11 Pijpers Arthur NED 2428 6
12 FM Ondersteijn Niels NED 2414 5
Peek Maurice NED 2391 5
14 IM Miedema David NED 2356 4,5
15 Hendriks Victor NED 2166 3
16 Van Den Berg Bram NED 2176 1,5

The organizers made the excellent decision to hold several 2-game mini matches, until someone would win one with 2-0 or 1.5-0.5 — so no Armageddon. As it turned out, only one mini match was needed.

Here's the first game:

And here's the second:

And so Van Wely was crowned Open Dutch Lightning Champion 2015. Besides the 500-euro first prize he got a ridiculously big trophy. Laughing

Champions are also made in football stadiums.
Lots of spectators watching the playoff.
More from PeterDoggers
Abdusattorov Maintains World #4 Position As Prague Masters Ends With All Draws

Abdusattorov Maintains World #4 Position As Prague Masters Ends With All Draws

Bu Xiangzhi Wins Shenzhen Masters On Tiebreaks, Giri Drops Out Of Top 10

Bu Xiangzhi Wins Shenzhen Masters On Tiebreaks, Giri Drops Out Of Top 10