World's youngest grandmaster dominating Dutch Open

Anish Giri, the youngest grandmaster in the world (he turned 15 only a month ago), is dominating the Dutch Open Championship so far. He is the only player with a 100% score after five rounds, and leads by a full point with 4 games to go.

The Open Dutch Championship is taking place July 21-30 in Dieren, The Netherlands, where it has been held for decades. This year it's already the 41st time! Besides the strong Open there are many lower groups, blitz, rapid and bughouse tournaments and of course the traditional match on Sunday between chess players and a team of the local football club.

About 500 amauter players have come to Dieren this year and many of them stay at the special "chess camping" on the complex of the same football club. (Your editor-in-chief will never forget that he played his first 9-round Swiss ever, staying at that camping, in 1991, scoring 6.5/9 in the C-group - a performance of 1737 which became my first national rating. When I arrived at the camping I met with two club mates who were memorizing the Zaitsev variation which was very popular after the 1990 Kasparov-Karpov match).

This year not one but two spots can be gained for the official Dutch Championship, to be held later this year (and two for the Women Championship as well). Besides, the first prize has been increased to € 3000, and as a result this year's Dutch Open is the strongest ever held.

One of the participants is former world's no. 2 Jan Timman, who hasn't played in Dieren for a very long time. The living legend of Dutch chess became Dutch Open champion in 1970, when he was still a very talented, rising star.



Timman is meeting strong opposition in Dieren, and we're not only talking about experienced grandmasters like regular guest Viacheslav Ikonnikov from Russia or this year's Cappelle-la-Grande winner Yuri Vovk. Many other, strong Dutch GMs are giving it a shot: Erwin l'Ami, Sipke Ernst, Friso Nijboer, Dimitri Reinderman, Robin Swinkels, Yge Visser and IM Ali Bitalzadeh, who was the surprising winner of last year.

We haven't yet mentioned one other grandmaster who is currently playing under the Dutch flag: Anish Giri. The 15-year-old doesn't need an introduction anymore - by now probably all of our readers know that the Russian-born is currently the world's youngest GM, and it doesn't stop there. At the moment Giri is leading the Dutch Open with 5 out of 5, after he beat Erwin l'Ami in round 4 with White and then outplayed Friso Nijboer yesterday with the black pieces - an impressive achievement by itself.

In such a field it's not bad to score 4.5/5, let alone 5 points, and it's no surprise that Giri has already created a gap of a full point in the standings, where GMs Ernst, l'Ami, Timman, Vovk, Ikonnikov, IM Adhiban and FM Miedema follow with 4 points. In round 6 (tomorrow) Giri plays Ernst, and chances are high that after that game we'll soon see is the most anticipated pairing of this event: Giri versus Timman.

Before we go to the games we can't leave you without mentioning the winner of the blitz tournament in Dieren: IM Merijn van Delft, co-editor of ChessVibes Openings! In the Open section Merijn is still undefeated; he scored two wins and three draws so far.

Dutch Open (Dieren) | Round 5 Standings

Game selection rounds 1-5

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Links

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