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NH Tournament in The Netherlands

Submitted by SonofPearl on Wed, 08/19/2009 at 11:16am.

The 2009 NH 'Rising Stars v Experience' Tournament in the Netherlands runs from 21-30 August.  This event will pit a team of young talents against a team of more experienced players.

It's an interesting idea for a team tournament, but last year the organisers got the balance of team strengths badly wrong, and the Rising Stars destroyed the Experience team by a crushing 33.5-16.5 score.

This year looks like being a much closer competition, with the Experience team being boosted by the inclusion of Peter Svidler, rated 2726 Elo (pictured).  Indeed, the only survivor from last year's Experience team is Ljubomir Ljubojevic.

The Rising Stars team is headed by US Champion Hikaru Nakmura, and also features a woman player in the form of 15 year-old Hou Yifan, who narrowly lost to Alexandra Kosteniuk in the final of last year's Women's World Chess Championship.

Fabiano Caruana is the only member of the Rising Stars team who played in this event last year.  His last-round win against Simen Agdestein is shown below.

The event is organised by NH Hoteles and the Association Max Euwe, and the official website with more details can be found here.

The full team line-ups are:

Experience Country Age Elo
Peter Svidler Russia 33 2726
Peter Heine Nielsen Denmark 36 2668
Alexander Beliavsky Slovenia 55 2640
Loek van Wely Netherlands 36 2622
Ljubomir Ljubojevic Serbia 58 2553
Rising Stars Country Age Elo
Hikaru Nakamura United States 21 2701
Fabiano Caruana Italy 17 2649
Jan Smeets Netherlands 24 2626
Daniel Stellwagen Netherlands 22 2619
Hou Yifan China 15 2590

 

 

Comments:

by tarnowski - 2 years ago
Poprad Slovakia
Member Since: Jan 2009
Member Points: 3024

Rising Stars are going to win! they are better ;)

by pro-life77 - 2 years ago
United States
Member Since: Apr 2009
Member Points: 150

cool

Cool

by mattattack99 - 2 years ago
Ann Arbor United States
Member Since: Jan 2009
Member Points: 3186

Let's go experienced players!

by Scarblac - 2 years ago
Arnhem Netherlands
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 2009

@demetrios: they're all GMs.

by sstteevveenn - 2 years ago
Wales United Kingdom
Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 1648

"Korchnoi, Hubner, and speelman may not be the best choices for the experience team all are having trouble against regular 2500s.  I saw Korchnoi last year at the National Open lose to a 2100 in 14 moves (matt of Green Bay, WI) during a 20 game simul. where he only won 13 games vs. class players.  Speelman has not play high level chess in awhile.   I suggest V. Anand, Karpov, Kasparov as 3 alternatives for the experience team."

 

That's probably because Korchnoi and Speelman are regular 2500s.  I think Anand would be overkill, Kasparov is retired and I don't see this as the sort of tournament he would play in anyway.  I cant see karpov playing in a tournament like this either.  He probably has to be more selective.  Seems to me like they have a decent spread of 2600-2700 players.

by blackmanrook - 2 years ago
Chicago United States
Member Since: Aug 2009
Member Points: 253

Korchnoi, Hubner, and speelman may not be the best choices for the experience team all are having trouble against regular 2500s.  I saw Korchnoi last year at the National Open lose to a 2100 in 14 moves (matt of Green Bay, WI) during a 20 game simul. where he only won 13 games vs. class players.  Speelman has not play high level chess in awhile.   I suggest V. Anad, Karpov, Kasparov as 3 alternatives for the experience team.

by Nytik - 2 years ago
Southampton United Kingdom
Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 5828

mkirk, I think it is figured out with age rather than fame or rating... note all the rising stars are <24, but all the 'experience' players are >33. Admittedly, some players in the past are World Champion material by 24, but this is a rarity.

by wingtzun - 2 years ago
United Kingdom
Member Since: Dec 2008
Member Points: 658

The so called 'rising stars' are hardly rising stars at all - most of already made it big!

Also the 'experience' group could have been better selected - Speelman, Hubner, Timman, Korchnoi, Short - these type of players.

 

Anyway, I will watch with interest!

 

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