Nijboer wins 5th HSG Open
Friso Nijboer won the 5th HSG Open in Hilversum, the Netherlands. The Dutch grandmaster finished on 7/9 which was half a point more than GMs Steingrimsson and Landa, and 13-year-old IM Nyzhnyk.
The 5th HSG (Hilversums Schaak Genootschap) Open took place Saturday 26 June - Sunday 4 July in Hotel Lapershoek in Hilversum, The Netherlands. It was a 9-round Swiss devided over two groups: A > 1850 and B < 1900. The rate of play in group A was two hours for 40 moves plus one hour to finish the game. The total prize fund was 7000 Euros.With 3 GMs and 5 IMs the tournament wasn't as strong as last year, but nonetheless many interesting games were played. A crucial encounter in the tournament was that of Dutch GM Friso Nijboer against Russian GM Konstantin Landa, in the sixth round. It was another example of the saying 'don't grab on b2, even if it's good'. In a sharp Caro-Kann, after Qxb2 Landa's queen was out of the game for many moves. 
Can the queen be trapped? Yes, but after 17.Bc1 Black plays 17...Qxa1 18.Nxa1 Rxd4 and there's no good way to profit from Black's rook and bishop in the centre. With a strong bishop pair, his compensation is clear. The computer finds the way to do it: 17.Rd1! Qxa2 18.Ra1 Qb2 19.f3. Nijboer played the strong alternative 17.f3 and after 17...Bd3 (17...Bd5 18.Bc1) 18.Rf2 Qa3 19.Nxc6 he managed to keep his extra pawn.In the same round the young Ukrainian IM Ilya Nyzhnyk defeated GM Hedinn Steingrimsson from Iceland in fine positional style (see the game viewer).Where his main rivals Landa and Steingrimsson drew quickly in the final round, Nijboer tried to win his game against our co-editor Yochanan Afek. However, the Israeli IM offered strong resistance, even after he had lost a pawn. Dutch talent Etienne Goudriaan put strong pressure on Nyzhnyk, but after this game ended in a draw, Nijboer could safely offer the same to Afek in a rook ending to claim the 2000 Euro first prize.
Selection of games
Game viewer by ChessTempo
The venue: Hotel Lapershoek in Hilversum
Links
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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