Next Thursday the new edition of the NH Chess Tournament starts in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Last year the Experience Team led by Viktor Kortchnoi got beaten terribly by the Rising Stars, with especially Wang Yue performing strongly. The organizers decided to lift up the average elo of the Experience Team, which is led by Peter Svidler now.The NH Chess Tournament will take place August 20-31 in hotel Krasnapolsky, in the heart of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. As always, the tournament is a confrontation between a team of five young ‘Rising Stars’ and a team of five ‘Experienced’ grandmasters who can look back on impressive and glorious careers.
The two teams play a ‘Scheveningen’ tournament, which means that each player of one team plays against each of the players of the other team. They do so twice, once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces. The team that collects most points wins the tournament. The best player of the 'Rising Stars' team will be invited to the 2010 Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Nice, provided he or she scores over 50% in the NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam.The playing schedule:
Round 1 |
August 20 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 2 |
August 21 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 3 |
August 22 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 4 |
August 23 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 5 |
August 24 |
13.30 hrs |
|
August 25 |
Free Day |
Round 6 |
August 27 |
13.30 hrs |
|
August 28 |
Free Day |
Round 7 |
August 28 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 8 |
August 29 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 9 |
August 30 |
13.30 hrs |
Round 10 |
August 31 |
12.00 hrs |
| |
Every day the games will be commented on by experts in the commentary room. These sessions start one hour after the start of the round, i.e. at 14.30 hrs, with the exception of the last round when the commentary will start at 13.00 hrs. IMs Hans Böhm, Jop Delemarre, Cor van Wijgerden, Gert Ligterink and GM Genna Sosonko will be doing the commentary (schedule
here). At the end of the round, or towards the end, depending on the duration of the games, there will also be a press conference with one of the players in the commentary room.Just like last year, and just like at the Amber tournament in Nice, both Macauley Peterson and yours truly will be providing daily video coverage of this tournament. To get everyone warmed up, here's the playlist of what we created last year: