Loek van Wely wins a horse

This weekend Loek van Wely won a horse. Okay, he wins them all the time, exchanges them for bishops or puts them on the rim (while he should know better) but winning a real horse, that’s what he did today at the first Remco Heite Chess Tournament. He finished sole first and thus secured himself of a true Stellingwerf trotter.

Like I wrote before the tournament organizers were originally planning to give away a horse to the tournament winner. But the General Inspection Service found out about it (giving away a horse is illegal in The Netherlands) and did not want to make an exception. Whatever happens, the winner gets a horse, the organizers thought. They came up with a nice solution: to the first prize a bonus was added exactly as high as the horse’s countervalue, with the option of buying the horse. This way, all offical rules were obliged to and Loek and Marion could meet their new purchase. It will live at a piece of land of Marion’s parents.

Van Wely’s victory was most convincing. In the fourth round he beat his closest rival Jan Timman and after that only Artur Yusupov could also finish equal first, if he would beat that same Timman and if Van Wely would lose to Jan Werle. Neither scenario became reality; Timman drew the game and Van Wely also won his last game. He became the winner of this new grandmaster tournament, which was a big succes and will be repeated in two years.

Final results Invitation Group:
1. Loek van Wely 4½
2. Artur Yusupov 3
3. Jan Timman, Robert Hübner 2½
5. Vlastimil Hort 1½
6. Jan Werle 1

(Thanks to Peter Boel)

>> replay the (quite interesting!) games

During the tournament a strong rapid tournament was held as well. As could be expected, it became a fight between the GM’s Erik van den Doel and Friso Nijboer; Doel beat Nijboer in the fourth round and after that he never gave away his lead. Final standings:

1. Van den Doel 8,5
2. Nijboer 8
3. Bosboom 7,5
4-5. Kodentsov en Van Geet 6
6-17 Van der Wiel, Visser, …