Round 5 Dutch league: HSG still leading

After the first, lengthy overview of the Dutch league (called 'Meesterklasse') it's time to pay some more attention to the top of the Dutch team competition. Last weekend the fifth round was played, and now it's clear that we're dealing with a race between two teams: HSG from Hilversum and Share Dimension from Groningen.

These are the teams with enough money to be able to shoot with the top guns. HSG has Van Wely and Seirawan; Share Dimension even contracted Kramnik and Ivanchuk. But more could be read in the earlier report; for now let's go to more recent developments; the fifth round. Unlike the German Bundesliga, the games of the Meesterklasse cannot be followed live online. There are even some people who'd like to go back to medieval times and keep the scores of the games secret, but thanks to the website Schakers.info the Dutch chess fans are able to read reports about the games, and download the games in PGN, which is great. And of course, Chessvibes should also show some fragments of last Saturday.

HSG-HMC Calder 7-3 No. 1 in the standings, HSG, defeated HMC Calder (Den Bosch) easily. HMC had to do without some strong players (Daniel Fridman and Jonathan Speelman). For Speelman the game came too soon after Gibraltar. However, HSG played without Van Wely, Nikolic and Ljubojevic!



ESGOO - Share Dimension 2?Ǭ? - 7?Ǭ? The strong Share Dimension Groningen could have played more convincingly so far, if we look at their results against LSG (5-5) and Utrecht (5,5-4,5). Against ESGOO they did what they had to do, with amongst others Ivanchuk, Tiviakov and Rublevsky in the team. Ivanchuk did not disappoint the excited audience and won despit big time trouble (1 minute for 10 moves).



SO Rotterdam - LSG 8 - 2 Rotterdam took the match very serious, and called in the GM's Winants, Reinderman and Van der Weide. All three of them showed their grandmaster power, and so there was never any doubt about the outcome of the match.



SMB - Zukertort Amstelveen 5?Ǭ? - 4?Ǭ? An exciting match between the two weakest teams. There were some small incidents, like missing a mate in three (Pieterse) and coming just one nano second short of reaching move 40 (Krudde).



Homburg Apeldoorn ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Utrecht 3?Ǭ? - 6?Ǭ? Although the atmosphere was friendly, and the teams had diner together later that night, there was a good fight during the day. The many Utrecht IM's proved stronger than the Dutch-German combination of IM's from Apeldoorn.



Next round, on March 3rd, HSG and Share Dimension play each other. It's the match of the year.

Standings after round 5

 1. HSG                  10  34
 2. Share Dimension       9  32
 3. SO Rotterdam          6  29
 4. HMC Calder            6  25
 5. Utrecht               5  26
 6. ESGOO                 5  23?Ǭ?
 7. Homburg Apeldoorn     4  25
 8. SMB                   4  21
 9. LSG                   1  18?Ǭ?
10. Zukertort Amstelveen  0  16

Results round 5

HSG               - HMC Calder          7 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 3
Nijboer           - Kasimdzhanov        ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Seirawan          - Kritz               1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0
Smeets            - De Jong             ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Rogers            - Abeln               ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
l'Ami             - Span                ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Stellwagen        - Ondersteijn         1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0
Janssen           - Broekmeulen         1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0
De Vreugt         - W. Muhren           0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 1
Douven            - B. Muhren           1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0
Vedder            - Twan Burg           1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0

ESGOO             - Share Dimension    2?Ǭ? - 7?Ǭ?
Lemmers           - Ivanchuk            0 - 1
Rothuis           - Tiviakov            0 - 1
Feygin            - Rublevsky           0 - 1
Kalka             - Sokolov             0 - 1
Kroeze            - Werle               ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Fridman           - Visser              0 - 1
Richter           - Spoelman            1 - 0
Bierenbroodspot   - Lanchava            1 - 0
Vogel             - Brandenburg         0 - 1
Buenermann        - Hoeksema            0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 1

SO Rotterdam      - LSG                 8 - 2
Winants           - Bosman              1 - 0
Reinderman        - V.d Werf            1 - 0
Cuijpers          - V.d. Wiel           ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ? 
V.d. Weide        - Van Ketel           1 - 0
Bosch             - Blokhuis            1 - 0
Carlier           - Wantola             1 - 0
Solleveld         - Wiersma             0 - 1
Martens           - Middelburg          1 - 0
Kuijf             - Van Haastert        ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?  
VandeVoort        - Konings             1 - 0

SMB               - Zukertort A'veen   5?Ǭ? - 4?Ǭ?
Krudde            - De Boer             0 - 1
Tjiam             - Strating            ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Hendriks          - Okkes               ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Van Gisbergen     - Schmitz             1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0
Deegens           - Pieterse            ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Swinkels          - Sminia              1 - 0
Klip              - Tan                 ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Van Rijn          - De Rooij            ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
W?ɬºstefeld         - Theulings           ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Retera            - Kuling              ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?

Homburg Apeldoorn ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Utrecht            3?Ǭ? - 6?Ǭ?
Halkias           ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Martijn Dambacher   0 - 1
Langheinrich      ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Smerdon             0 - 1
Siebrecht         ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú J. Willemze         0 - 1
L. van Beek       ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Bizaltadeh          1 - 0
Van Delft         ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Michielsen          0 - 1
Bosboom           ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Berkvens            1 - 0
V.d.Oudeweetering ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú A. van Beek         0 - 1
Pruijssers        ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú T. Willemze         1 - 0
Kabatianski       ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Ris                 ?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Moll              ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Jens                0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 1