Other Events: Hoogeveen
The European Club Cup is the main event these days, but there's a whole festival full of events going on in the Netherlands, in Hoogeveen. There is an open event with three co-leaders entering the last round: Abhijeet Gupta, Benjamin Bok and Jan Werle top the table with 6/8. There are a set of concurrent matches, of which the main event is a classical match between two Dutch players: the legendary figure Jan Timman and 16-year-old GM-elect Jorden van Foreest. The first two games were drawn and Timman won the next two to clinch at least a tie, but van Foreest won game five to keep the final outcome in doubt.
There was also a Basque match (two opponents play a pair of simultaneous games with each other) that was either between Loek van Wely and van Foreest or between Erik van den Doel and Dmitri Reinderman. If it was the former pairing, van Wely won 2-0; if the latter, I don't know who won.
Finally, there was also a six-game match between Anish Giri's new bride, Sopiko Guramishvili, and Anna-Maja Kazarian. Guramishvili was a favorite, outrating her opponent 2365-2248, but when she clinched match victory by winning the first four games it was clear that the disparity in strength was probably greater than their respective ratings would normally indicate. Having clinched the match, Guramishvili offered a charity draw in the fifth game, probably happy to close the match with a convincing overall victory while giving her opponent the chance to save some face. Kazarian took the draw with the black pieces, but in game six they again played a real game. IF this was a sudden rush of optimism by Kazarian, it was pretty foolish, and she lost again - badly. Sometimes it's best to accept an opponent's graciousness and put a bad event behind you.
Reader Comments (2)
Anna-Maja Kazarian is a 15-year old talent and might be currently a bit overrated - she recently benefitted from K factor 40 to gain 128 rating points for the August 2015 list (her last rated games).
In the match, getting experience might have mattered more than the actual result. To me it is a bit reminiscent of the match between Shirov and Dubov in 2013: 5-1 for Shirov - Dubov, normally or until then a strictly positional player tried to play in the style of Shirov. It became a lesson to him; there is at least tentative evidence that Dubov became a more flexible/universal player in the meantime.
I respect Anna-Maja Kazarian for playing hard in the final game even if it backfired. Aside from rating points she had little to lose at that point and the possibility to end with a win was worth the risk.