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Essent starts again

12 October 2007 8:00 AM CET | Last modified: 10:32 | By Peter Doggers  | Filed under: Reports | Tags:

It’s that period of the year: leaves are falling down and although we still see the sun quite often, it’s getting slightly colder. Especially in Hoogeveen. It’s mid-October and this means Essent time! Today it’s the start of the 11th edition of the tournament where the players play with chess sets of glass. Well, the four players in the traditional round-robin will. This year they are Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine), last year’s winner Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbeidzan), the highest-rated Dutchman Loek van Wely and World Junior Champion Zaven Andriasyan (Armenia). With an average rating of 2668 (category 17) the tournament promises to bring some interesting fights.

From the press release:

Former world junior champion Mamedyarov, currently the no. 7 on the FIDE rating list, is the big favourite. Mamedyarov won the Essent Tournament in 2006, before Judit Polgar and Veselin Topalov.

The traditional criteria for selecting the Essent round-robin (strongest Dutch player, world juniors champion, best female and world champion) have almsot been kept intact. Only Judit Polgar had to refuse this year because of other obligations.

The dates of the 11th Essent Chess Tournament are Friday 12 October - Saturday 20 October 2007. As always, the venue is the City Hall of the municipality of Hoogeveen. Besides the four-player round-robin, a strong open tournament (with more than ten GM’s playing) and two amateur tournaments will be held. A total of more than 200 chess players are participating in the Essent Chess Tournament.

Last year the Essent Toernooi was the first big tournament where we did video reports for this website. The post-mortem Polgar-Mamedyarov has become infamous by now. We did photo reports here and here and here and here and I had an interview with the young Dutch GMs l’Ami, Smeets and Werle.

This year I won’t play myself but I’ll surely visit the tournament for new video reports!

Participants Essent 2007:






Shakhryar Mamedyarov Ruslan Ponomariov
Shakhryar Mamedyarov (2757) Ruslan Ponomariov (2722)
Loek van Wely Zaven Andriasyan
Loek van Wely (2679) Zaven Andriasyan (2540)

Photo Andriasyan © Harald Fietz | other photos © New in Chess

The first forty participants of the Essent Open:

Participants Essent Open 2007

Nr Naam Rating Titel Fed M/V
1 Postny, Evgeny 2598 GM ISR M
2 l'Ami, Erwin 2577 GM NED M
3 Werle, Jan 2568 GM NED M
4 Hillarp Persson, Tiger 2567 GM SWE M
5 Nijboer, Friso 2559 GM NED M
6 Smeets, Jan 2558 GM NED M
7 Gofshtein, Leonid 2541 GM ISR M
8 Abergel, Thal 2528 IM FRA M
9 Reinderman, Dimitri 2510 GM NED M
10 Winants, Luc 2504 GM BEL M
11 Safarli, Eltaj 2488 IM AZE M
12 Rasmussen, Allan Stig 2485 FM DEN M
13 Hort, Vlastimil 2483 GM GER M
14 Szoen, Dariusz 2481 IM POL M
15 Visser, Yge 2470 GM NED M
16 Haub, Thorsten-Michael 2469 IM GER M
17 Smerdon, David 2466 IM AUS M
18 Simutowe, Amon 2421 IM ZAM M
19 Peng, Zhaoqin 2419 GM NED V
20 Delft, Merijn van 2418 M NED M
21 Willemze, Thomas 2417 IM NED M
22 Pruijssers, Roeland 2408 IM NED M
23 Okkes, Menno 2386 FM NED M
24 Ris, Robert 2381 IM NED M
25 Vedder, Henk 2364   NED M
26 Fayard, Alain 2360 FM FRA M
27 Tondivar, Babak 2353 FM NED M
28 Afek, Yochanan 2350 IM ISR M
29 Grooten, Herman 2350 IM NED M
30 Erwich, Frank 2346 FM NED M
31 Mamedjarova, Zeinab 2342 WGM AZE V
32 Jong, Migchiel de 2341 FM NED M
33 Ruijgrok, Dennis 2330   NED M
34 Aleskerov, Faik 2327   AZE M
35 Hedke, Fred 2323 FM GER M
36 Pg, Mohd Omar Ak Hirawan 2316   BRU M
37 Vuilleumier, Alexandre 2315 FM SUI M
38 Kodentsov, Grisha 2307   NED M
39 Christensen, Stefan 2304 FM DEN M
40 Miedema, Roi 2303   NED M

(Full list here.) Last year three IM norms were scored in this group. The Mamedyarova are joining their again and among the other regular guests we see Vlastimil Hort. It’s going to be another great tournament!

Comments

One Response to “Essent starts again”

  1. Lajos Arpad on 14 October 2007 3:45 AM

    I think the field is weaker now than last year.

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