After a bit of a "slow start", no less than four games have suddenly been adjourned at the Golden Classic in Amsterdam. At the Dutch Championship, Anish Giri is in firm lead with 4.5/5 while at the SPA Open there's a three way tie between GM Tejas Bakre, IM Manuel Bosboom and FM Floris van Assendelft.

Venue of three tournaments: the University of Amsterdam's Universum Sports Centre

Golden Classic

One aspect of tournaments with adjournments is that it's often hard to figure out who's exactly leading, and by what margin. We now also see this in Amsterdam, where five rounds have been played and suddenly no less than four games have been adjourned! Le Quang Liem-Muzychuk and Sutovsky-Sasikiran of round 4, and Sasikiran-Kamsky and Jobava-Le Quang Liem of round 5 are still "hanging", and will be resumed on Saturday.

Golden Classic 2012 | Round 5 standings

If we look at the standings, we see that Vassil Ivanchuk, who gave a masterclass on his rest day on Thursday, is in first place with 3/4.

Vassily Ivanchuk, wearing a cap he surely got when scoring one of his many victories at the Capablanca Memorial

The 43-year-old Ukrainian could theoretically be caught by Gata Kamsky and Anna Muzychuk, if they win their adjourned games. Hopefully Le Quang Liem and Krishnan Sasikiran didn't make plans for Friday night yet, because they have two positions two analyze and play out the next morning!

Let's have a look at the positions.

Le Quang Liem-Anna Muzychuk
Golden Classic (03), 2012

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Black to move (sealed). Here's what the Vietnamese GM said after the game (interview by Tex de Wit, produced by Hicham Boulahfa).

Emil Sutovsky-Krishnan Sasikiran
Golden Classic (03), 2012

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White to move (sealed). Sutovsky is both organizer and player, and commented on camera (interview by Tex de Wit, produced by Hicham Boulahfa):

Krishnan Sasikiran-Gata Kamsky
Golden Classic (04), 2012

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White to move (sealed).

Baadur Jobava-Le Quang Liem
Golden Classic (04), 2012

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White to move (sealed). Here's an interview with both players (interview by Arlette van Weersel, produced by Hicham Boulahfa):

Below we give the games of the third, fourth and fifth round (for the first two rounds see this report). Mind that they were played with the old, longer time control of 2.5 hours for the first 40 moves! Despite this wealth of time, Gata Kamsky and Vassily Ivanchuk disappointed the fans with a 10-move draw in round 4. Afterwards Kamsky, who had offered the draw, said

I could only see a black wall in front of me,

which was obviously related to the way FIDE dealt with the Grand Prix participants, earlier this week. First Kamsky was in, and a day later he was not... Still, we wonder whether Kamsky couldn't just have postponed his game against Chuky? Whatever the circumstances may be (and it's very understandable for Kamsky), a 10-move draw is never good advertising for our sport. Silvio Danailov tweeted about this:

Kamsky saw a black wall today,that's why he offered a draw.The question is,what saw Ivanchuk?There is no excuses,sport is sport.Sofia rules!

Games rounds 3-5

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Dutch Championship

At the Dutch Championship, top seed Anish Giri has had an excellent start. We know that he defeated his main rival Ivan Sokolov in the first round, and after that he added three more wins and a draw. Here's an interesting fragment from his game in the third round.

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Dutch Championship 2012 | Round 5 standings

A separate section in the playing hall, with the Dutch Women's Championship in the front, the Dutch men in the middle and the Golden Classic at the back

At the SPA Open only one of the six GMs is in the lead after six rounds. GM Tejas Bakre scored 5/6, just like IM Manuel Bosboom and FM Floris van Assendelft. In our previous report we mentioned a brilliancy by Manuel Bosboom. One of Manuel's good friends is Aran Kohler, who is lower rated but can be just as creative at times. He drew a nice game with a GM in round 4, but could have won very quickly:

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For our Dutch readers: you can watch an interview with Kohler here.

SPA Open 2012 | Round 6 standings (top 40)

To finish this report, we should also mention the fire alarm that went off during the round on Wednesday. The whole playing hall, including the participants of the different sections in the open tournament, had to be evacuated. We were told that the cause of the alarm ringing was the door in the sauna elsewhere in the venue, that had been left open for too long...!