It's good in Hoogeveen. The weather is good (quite warm actually), the pizzeria is good (especially the pizza Dynamite) and the results are good. I started well with a draw against a 2500-player but de fourteen year old and very talented Moulthun Ly from Australia did even better by beating GM Ikonnikov with Black. Ly hasn't played much outside Australia yet; he did participate in the World Open (Philadelphia) this year and won a bigger money price than his famous compatriot GM Ian Rogers ever did in one tournament in thirty years. The young Moulthun is really a 21st century kid: ICC-junkie is almost an understatement. His ?¢‚ǨÀúpercentage of life online' seems to be 19% there?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ Recently he played a five hour blitz session against KingLoek (several hundreds of games) in which he scored quite decently. More important is his game of yesterday. Ikonnikov controlled the position with his knight on d7 but actually couldn't make progress. Ly didn't mind to repeat moves several times and yes, then at some point White went too far. With a sharp counter Ly put up a winning king's attack.
Ikonnikov-Ly
>> replay the game with some comments by LyHere some more photos.
After the opening ceremony (in another building) Judit Polgar visited the playing hall and didn't mind posing for me.
Veteran Vlastimil Hort again plays here. He's interested in almost any game.
The analysis in Smeets-Weeks, with on the background from left to right Ly's father, Thomas Willemze, Ali Bizaltadeh, Jan Werle en Erwin l'Ami.