REPORT BY CHESSVIBES

Univé Chess Tournament

Also in the third round of the Univé Chess Tournaments both games in the Crown Group ended in a draw. Giri drew easily with Polgar using the Petroff while Ivanchuk couldn’t convert a big advantage against Tiviakov – the Dutchman GM liquidated to a RB-R ending and knew his endgame theory.

The 17th Univé Chess Tournament, formerly known as Essent Tournament but sponsored by insurance company Univé this year, takes place October 16-24 in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. As always the Crown Group is a 4-player, double round-robin with this year Vassily Ivanchuk (2756), Judit Polgar (2687), Sergei Tiviakov (2670) and Anish Giri (2552) playing for a € 10,000 prize fund. The time control is 40 moves in 1.5 hours + 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from the start.

Round 3

Yet again we were looking at an empty tournament hall today as far as the open group was concerned, when one game in the Crown Group was still going on. Ivanchuk was trying to beat Tiviakov in the infamous RB-R ending which is theoretically drawn, but tricky in practical play. However, with the time control used in Hoogeveen, Tiviakov didn’t come close to timetrouble, and in such a situation defending the ending is a piece of cake for a strong grandmaster.

It was understandable that Ivanchuk tried it for quite a while, because earlier the Ukrainian top seed had probably thrown away a winning position. He refuted strange opening play by Tiviakov and reached a very promosing ending. “29…Be7 was a bad move,” Ivanchuk said. “29…h4 or taking on h3 must be winning.”

Univé Chess Tournament

Anish Giri is still holding his own comfortably among the big names; today the 15-year-old easily drew with Black against Judit Polgar. In fact, if anyone could have played for a win it was him. “Maybe against a weaker played I would have gone for 11…Ne6 but against Polgar I thought I should play it safe.” So far keeping it safe is enough to share the lead at half-time.

Univé Chess Tournament