Wijk aan Zee in the winter sun |
Certainly the second tournament weekend
is the ideal time for members of the KWA to visit the Corus tournament
in Wijk aan Zee. Till then the events have already stabilized and particularly
the chess antiquarian bookseller from Zutphen www.boekenvreugd.nl/
is present with a wide variety of books. If you then fancy playing a game
yourself, it would make sense to participate in the rapid tournament.
But
2010 all was different as our friend John Donaldson, coming from the team
world championship at Bursa in Turkey, had announced himself for a flying
visit at the beginning of the tournament. For me of course it was finally
the opportunity to take part in one of the legendary three-round events
in Wijk aan Zee.
My
opponents in group
2C were Lorena Zepeda,
Reinier Jaquet (standing, after our short draw on Sunday) and Han
Schut.
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So I arrived on Friday evening after a somewhat stressful journey at the
tournament hall and on schedule at 6.30 pm I could make the first move
(together with nearly 500 further chess friends) in my "group of
four" 2C. I was not aware that my opponent, WIM Lorena Zepeda (ELO
2156, from El Salvador, more precisely Cuidad Merliot) seemed to be quite
prominent in the Netherlands and my game even attracted attention of several
grandmasters (and of the photographers). Certainly this was not attributed
to my fine play but rather to my attractive counterpart. Moreover Lorena’s
sister Sonia who started in group 2B was seated next to me.
Han
Schut (left) still waiting for his opponent Lorena Zepeda.
Two boards next to him his strongly playing daughter Lisa
had already begun the last game. |
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I
had just decided in favour of the"second-best"
way to win against Han Schut
and had queened the d-pawn after a strange curving around the black
pawn d6.
On the right Lorena Zepeda plays against Reinier Jaquet
in order still to lose in the end from a good position. |
The
Zepeda sisters in the three-round event in the groups 2B and 2C.
(Photo from
Saturday, first Lorena sat down at the wrong board. So I had the
pleasure
to be placed between the two ladies.) |
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From a French Opening a complicated game developed where I could exploit
small errors of my opponent and start in her time trouble the decisive
attack at the queenside.
Zepeda, Lorena - Negele, Michael [A08]
Three-round event Wijk aan Zee (1), 15/01/2010
1.e2-e4 e7-e6 2.d2-d3 d7-d5 3.Nb1–d2 c7-c5 4.Ng1–f3
Nb8-c6 5.g2-g3 Bf8-d6 6.Bf1–g2 Ng8-e7 7.0–0 Bd6-c7 8.Rf1–e1
0–0 9.c2-c3 Ne7-g6 [9...b7-b6 10.e4-e5 Bc8-a6 11.Nd2-f1
d5-d4] 10.Qd1–e2 f7-f5?! 11.Nd2-f1? [11.e4xd5 e6xd5
12.d3-d4 c5xd4 13.Nf3xd4 Nc6xd4 14.c3xd4 f5-f4 15.Qe2-b5] 11...f5-f4
12.h2-h4 f4xg3 13.f2xg3 d5-d4 14.c3-c4 Ng6-e5 15.Nf3-g5 Qd8-e8 16.Nf1–h2
h7-h6 17.Ng5-h3 Qe8-g6 [17...Nc6-b4 18.Nh3-f4 g7-g5] 18.Bc1–f4
Bc8-d7 19.h4-h5 Qg6-f7 20.Re1–f1 Qf7-e7 21.a2-a3? Rf8-f7 22.Rf1–f2
Ra8-f8 23.Ra1–f1 Bd7-e8 24.Bf4-d2 Rf7xf2 25.Rf1xf2 Rf8xf2 26.Nh3xf2
Qe7-f7 27.g3-g4 Qf7-f6 28.Nh2-f3 Ne5xf3+ 29.Qe2xf3 Qf6-e5 30.Kg1–f1
Nc6-a5 31.Nf2-h3 Na5-b3 32.Bd2-f4 Qe5-f6 33.Kf1–e2 e6-e5 34.Bf4-d2
Qf6-b6 35.Bd2-e1 Nb3-c1+ 36.Ke2-f1 Qb6xb2 37.g4-g5 Qb2-c2 38.g5xh6 Qc2xd3+
39.Qf3xd3 Nc1xd3 40.h6xg7 Be8xh5 0–1
Here you can play
through the game.
Shortly after 10 pm I had won my game and went tired but satisfied to
my hotel in Haarlem.
Next morning I picked up John Donaldson at the station in Beverwijk and
we went to the Pavillon to wait there for the other KWA guests. John proudly
presented his "silver medal" which the US team had quite surprisingly
won under his team leadership at Bursa. Of course he was also happy to
receive the 3.5 kg volume of the Lasker "bible" which however
worried him somewhat because of the weight at the return journey.
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Left: John Donaldson as a proud co-author of the Lasker
monograph - decorated with the silver medal from Bursa. |
For me it was especially pleasing that John had quite a lot of small
presents in his luggage, among other things a brand-new biography
of GM Suat Atalik (in Turkish). |
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Unfortunately the Pavillon was then prepared for a reception and was not
available for the planned book market of the KWA. Therefore we switched
to the trendy pub De Moriaan at the venue which gradually filled up about
noon. There John provided me with some insights into my game and my opponent
who arguably is the present girlfriend of King Loek van Wely – which
explains the above interest.
John
Donaldson with Ton de Vreede |
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In the meantime Ton de Vreede and Gerard Welling had appeared and after
all Bob van de Velde, Jurgen Stigter as well as the constant Wijk aan
Zee visitors Calle Erlandsson and Per Skjoldager, the latter in company
of his son Mikael, arrived. Unfortunately we had to improvise more or
less the book market, everyone could just take a look at my two boxes.
Later on we still met Peter de Jong, so some additional autographs were
eternalized in the Lasker book.
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Gerard
Welling has joined us
- Lasker seems to be "omnipresent". |
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