Hard times for Andriasian

Yesterday and today I was in Hoogeveen and amongst other things I saw that Essent 2007 is indeed a bit too strong for Andriasian. Also against Loek van Wely he had to resign and so for the young Zaven this first half with three zeros is even worse than Topalov’s last year. Mamedyarov and Ponomariov didn’t take too many risks and played what one calls a “correct draw”. Today the crown group didn’t play and so the open group is already two rounds further, compared to the last report, with l’Ami and Postny leading.

Standings after three rounds:

Ponomariov and Mamedyarov enjoying their analysis (and photographer Fred Lucas shooting the latter).

In the open groep tournament leader Jan Werle was beaten on theoretical grounds yesterday. He didn’t know about a certain game between Gelfand and Aroniand while Postny did. l’Ami won his round 5 and 6 games and shares the lead with Postny now.

Today especially Reinderman-Peng was exciting. After the game both GM’s entered the press room and together with a third one (Luc Winants) we looked at the game on my laptop, with Rybka running on the background. Here’s the result of our labour: