Few surprises in first weekend Semi Finals

We still recall the Dutch national championship of June this year, with Tiviakov's first victory and another one of many by Peng. This weekend the long way up to the next championship started with the Semi Finals, held in Hilversum. One grandmaster had to go home already: Dennis de Vreugt, who lost to Herman Grooten. The other results were as expected, although GM John van der Wiel had his tough moments.

Nineteen year old Jan Breukelman managed to beat John van der Wiel, who had a cold, with White in the first round. On the second day Jan tried to reach the second round by playing the Petroff with Black but the grandmaster won a pawn and finished the game in an ending. The tiebreak was a convincing 2-0 for Van der Wiel. The only other tiebreak was Grooten-De Vreugt after two draws in the regular games. Grooten knew how to handle the shorter time limit and played two excellent rapid games which he won 2-0.

The results:

Enrico Blees       - Jan Werle           0 - 2
Jippe Kamstra      - Jan Smeets          0 - 2
Sipke Ernst        - Evert Rademakers   1?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Horatio Vlam       - Ruud Janssen        0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 2
Jeroen Bosch       - Harold van Dijk    1?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Frank Kroeze       - Chiel van Oosterom 1?Ǭ? - ?Ǭ?
Erik Hoeksema      - Martijn Dambacher   ?Ǭ? - 1?Ǭ?
Wieb Zagema        - Eelke Wiersma       0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 2
Edwin van Haastert ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Xander Wemmers      2 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 0
Jeroen Willemze    - Manuel Bosboom      0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 2
Jan Breukelman     - John van der Wiel   1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 1
Yge Visser         - Bram van der Velden 15 nov.
Richard Vedder     - Wouter Spoelman     ?Ǭ? - 1?Ǭ?
Ramon Koster       - Bruno Carlier       0 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 2
Jan-Willem de Jong ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú Sybolt de Boer      ?Ǭ? - 1?Ǭ? 
Dennis de Vreugt   - Herman Grooten      1 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú 1

One fragment:

Bosboom-Willemze Hilversum 2006

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 c6 3. b3 d5 4. Bb2 e6 5. e3 a6 6. Qc2 Pbd7 7. Rg1 Bd6 8. g4 A well-known sort of attack from the Slav, which might be even stronger here since Black's fifth move wasn't a good one. 8...e5 Willemze was not satisfied about his one after the game but to me this one seems normal. 9. Nc3 e4? But this is wrong. Opening the diagonal a1-h8 is very good for White. 9... h6 or 9... Qc7 10. g5 Ng8 are better. 10. g5! Ng8 11. Nd4 Ne7?! More difficult for White would have been 11...Ne5 12. cxd5 c5 but after 13. Qxe4 Ne7 he has the nice sortee 14. Ndb5! axb5 15. Nxb5 and here too Black is in deep trouble. 12. cxd5 cxd5 13. Nxd5! Nxd5 14. Qxe4+ Ne7 15. Nf5 Here White was already winning and he finished the game in style (although he missed a mate in three at move 28).

All games can be replayed here. And do have a look at the excellent round reports (in Dutch but still comprehensible with lots of diagrams) of day 1 and day 2 by Peter Boel.