Last week we promised to return to Hoogeveen once more, for a report on the Open tournament that took place alongside the Crown Group that was won by Kramnik. The 9-round Swiss finished in a three-way tie between Dutchmen Sergey Tiviakov, Sipke Ernst and Robin van Kampen, and it was Tiviakov who had the best tie-break.

This open already took off on Friday, October 14th, two days before the first round of the Crown Group. And it started with a bang: GM Sipke Ernst, at 2581 third seeded in the tournament, lost to WIM Arlette van Weersel (2191). It was the first time the 27-year-old Dutch player beat a GM.

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"I had not played for a while,"

said Van Weersel afterwards.

I didn't trust my openings very much and decided to play 2.c4 against his Sicilian. Sipke knew this of course and played reasonably quickly after having thought for a while earlier. He quickly got into a passive position and then made a calculating error. I won the exchange and a pawn. Normally you still lose against someone like Ernst - well, he could have defended tougher - but for some reason he started to play very quickly while he still had about twenty minutes left. He sacrificed a few pawns to open up my king's position but I just grabbed everything and after the exchange of queens there was absolutely no chance.

Arlette van Weersel beat a GM

Ernst's commentary:

The black player in the game Van Weersel-Ernst was unrecognizable. He missed almost all the moves of his opponent.

This turned out to be very close to the truth. In the rest of the tournament the real Sipke Ernst stood up, and scored 7/8! Despite the unfortunate start, the 32-year-old Dutch GM eventually finished shared first with GM Sergey Tiviakov and Robin van Kampen, who was in fact officially declared GM during the tournament.

Let's have a look at a good game from each of the tournament winners. Ernst's super comeback included a crucial last-round win against Ukrainian top talent Ilya Nyzhnyk:

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A splendid comeback for Sipke Ernst

15-year-old GM Ilya Nyzhnyk (Ukraine) finished shared 4th, with 6.5/9

Robin van Kampen had a tough game against English GM Stewart Haslinger, who suddenly went for an unsound piece sac:

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16-year-old Robin van Kampen, also a GM now

Sergey Tiviakov, who played in the Crown Group in the last two editions, also won his last round game. In his typical positional style he beat American GM Aleksandr Lenderman, who himself annotated this game for Chess Life Online, at the end of his interview with Macauley Peterson.

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Last round, board 1: Sergey Tiviakov - Aleksandr Lenderman, 1-0

GM Aleksandr Lenderman

Rob Schoorl scored his second IM norm in the tournament, and a TPR close to 2600. The following game won the tournament's brilliancy prize, an original hunt on the black king that ends up all the way on c2.

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Univé Chess Tournament | Open Group (Hoogeveen) 2011 | Round 9 (final) standings (top 40)

Many participants of the open tournament slept and prepared for their games in the nearby bungalow park...

...where idyllic images like these could provide the necessary relaxation of the mind

Another tournament victory for Sergey Tiviakov