In Amsterdam thee tournaments have begun: the ACP Golden Classic, the Dutch Championships and the SPA Open. So far the online spectators and Dutch chess fans present haven't been disappointed as in lots of nice games have been played in the Dutch capital already.

The front page today of the excellent website

The Golden Classic, we remind you, is the tournament that has re-introduced adjournments in tournament practice. The participants are Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR, 2764), Gata Kamsky (USA, 2741), Baadur Jobava (GEO, 2721), Krishnan Sasikiran (IND, 2720), Le Quang Liem (VIE, 2703), Emil Sutovsky (ISR, 2687) and Anna Muzychuk (SLO, 2598). They play with the old classical time control, 2.5 hours for the first 40 moves, and the idea is that after that the games can be adjourned. (However, after two rounds no game has been adjourned yet!)

Update: When the arbiter told Le Quang Liem and Vassily Ivanchuk after the time control that they had to adjourn, Le resigned immediately. In Jobava-Sasikiran, the game was adjourned but after checking computer analysis, Jobava resigned soon.

At the opening ceremony and drawing of lots, Vassily Ivanchuk was not present. He had missed his connecting flight in Munich, according to the official website "because he was deeply concentrated in a position on his little metal chess set". :-) There are no real rest days, because every player misses one round anyway. In the first round this was Emil Sutovsky. Some players will give masterclasses on their rest days: Kamsky, Ivanchuk, Le and Sasikiran.

His logistical issues didn't stop Ivanchuk from grabbing an early lead. After two days, the Ukrainian is the only player with two victories. In both games he showed sharp tactical vision - here's his win in round 2:

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Vassily Ivanchuk, here against Jobava, is on 2/2 | Photo courtesy of the official website

Anna Muzychuk, the only lady in the field, won a nice game in the first round against Sasikiran.

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Anna Muzychuk | Photo courtesy of the official website

Games rounds 1-2

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Golden Classic 2012 | Round 2 standings

The Dutch Championships have started on Sunday at the same venue. The participants are Anish Giri (2696), Ivan Sokolov (2676), Jan Smeets (2620), Erwin l'Ami (2615), Dimitri Reinderman (2598), Robin van Kampen (2560), Sipke Ernst (2558) and Robin Swinkels (2485). In the women section only Zhaoqin Peng (2414), Tea Lanchava (2336), Anne Haast (2255) and Martine Middelveld (2134) play.

In the men's section, the pairings had the absolute top encounter between Anish Giri and Ivan Sokolov already in the first round. Giri won.

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Dutch Championship 2012 | Round 1 standings

The SPA Open has seen few surprises so far, but a few GMs already dropped half a point in Sunday's second round: Roeland Pruijssers (against Sjoerd Plukkel, 2274), Gergely Antal (against Alje Hovenga, 2247)  and Tejas Bakre (against Bharat Arjun, 2250). IM Manuel Bosboom played a truly fantastic game, in true Bosboom style, in the first round.

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SPA Open 2012 | Round 2 standings (top 40)