Bezemer champion of Amsterdam

The Chessvibes reporters are everywhere! They’re in Moscow, in Morelia, and soon in Linares as well. But also, of course, in their hometown, Amsterdam. Yesterday, the last round of the championship of Amsterdam was played at the Wethouder Verheij sports hall. Our love for Amsterdam chess life is so big here at Chessvibes, that we even went through lots of rain and wrong turns (because of the rebuilding of the entire neighborhood of the sports hall). But we did get value for money in the end. The exciting last round was exactly what sensation-seeking journalists were hoping for.

In group A, Arno Bezemer was leading superiorly with 5,5 out of 6. He did have to scratch and bite for it, though, as becomes clear, for example, from his fifth round game against Amsterdam talent Vincent Ouwendijk. Bezemer annotated this light game with light comments.

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Before the last round, on second place we found the always surprising Enrico Vroombout with 4,5 point, followed by a number of players, including Ouwendijk, with 4 points. Last years champion, Sybolt de Boer - according to many the strongest player in the field - played a lousy tournament, by the way. Other cracks like Wim Luberti en Paul-Peter Theulings were also not competing for top prizes. Bezemer had a tough last-round opponent in Aran Kohler, while Vroombout had to keep the talented Rick Duijker off of him. This last game truly captured the imagination of the spectators. Let’s join the game at the moment your reporter entered the playing hall.

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An impressive piece of fighting chess by Duijker, and a bitter end for Vroombout after a good, albeit sometimes lucky (according to his victims) tournament.

It was Arno Bezemer who profited from all these mistakes. In the last round, Kohler got alarmingly close to a win, aftter Bezemer had fallen asleep from a better position. Or, as Bezemer said afterwards, “I wasn’t focusing on the game anymore.” Fortunately for him, the rook ending was still a narrow draw. This brought him to 6 points, which couldn’t be overtaken anymore. No doubt, the final standings will be published here pretty soon. And so, the deserved champion of 2007, Arno Bezemer, plays semi-finals for the Dutch Champions this year. We’re rooting for him already.