ENCI Limburg Open 2008

IM Swinkels, GM Nijboer, GM Jones and IM Klimov tied the first place in A-Group

The 2nd ENCI Limburg Open Chess Championships, that took place on 9-12th May in Maastricht, was marked as complete success when 366 players appeared to play in three tournament sections. As reported on the official website, sunny weather and friendly atmosphere were responsible for the overall wonderful experience.

After seven rounds of exciting chess, IM Robin Swinkels, GM Friso Nijboer, IM Sergey Klimov and GM Gawain Jones finished tied on the first place with 6.0 points each. Justin Gunther won the U1900 B-Group with 6.5, while Ton Montforts of Belgium was best in Senior Group with 4.0 points.

GM Friso Nijboer and GM Emanuel Berg

Last round report by Maarten van Laatum and Henning Friese:

On board 1, IM Swinkels and IM Klimov played a Taimanov Sicilian. White traded doubled isolated pawns on the c file for the bishop pair. After 19 moves they decided to draw thereby ensuring that they end up first.

The contenders on board 2, GM Dgebuadze and GM Nijboer, played a Classical Ruy Lopez. GM Nijboer, who commanded the black pieces, managed to push back the white pieces emerged with a clearly better position from the time trouble.

On board 3, GM Luther and GM Jones played a Ruy-Lopez. They reached an endgame where GM Jones with black was clearly winning as he was a passed b-pawn up. However, even though Luther was in enormous time trouble he defended very well. Nevertheless, he could not prevent the loss.

Playing with the black pieces on board 4, GM Berg chose to play a Scandinavian against IM Van Oosterom. White chose to sacrifice an exchange for a pawn. However, the compensation proved to be insufficient and Berg went on to win.

The playing venue

On board 6, GM Epishin had the white pieces against FM Pel’s Pirc. He managed to suppress any counter play by black. Epishin stepped up the pressure until Pel blundered away a pawn and shortly thereafter was forced to resign.

Playing on board 7 were two contestants for the title Limburg Champion: FM Wemmers with white and IM Dambacher with black. They played a line of the Paulsen Sicilian where white pushed his g-pawn early on. However, FM Wemmers never got near an attack and was outplayed by his opponent. Black’s play on the queenside simply proved to be much more dangerous.

Kotronias who played with white on board 7, faced a French Defence from FM Picard. In the course of the game white picked up a pawn on the queenside. This pawn decided the game as the pawn was eventually to promote.

On board 8, FM Monroy and Ringoir played a Reti opening. White managed to win a quality along the way and converted his advantage to a win.

Limburg Open official website