Dutch Treat 
by Hans Ree

Youth Championship

In 1987 I was present at a World Junior Championship as a second
of the Dutch participant Jeroen Piket. The tournament was to be
held in Manila, but when we arrived there, we learned that it was
moved to Baguio City, maybe because in the preceding days there
had been a few bomb attacks on tourist hotels in Manila. We
stayed one day in Manila and I noticed that right in front of our
hotel there was a political demonstration. There was some
shouting, I walked past the demonstrators without paying attention
and later in my hotel room I looked out of the window a few times
to see what was going on, but didn't notice anything special. In the
evening I learned from a television news broadcast that two people
had died in what had become a clash with police forces. Had I been
a press correspondent, I think I would have left the television out
of my eye-witness report.

The Belgian participant's second had dared to join the
demonstrators, showing his solidarity with the forces of democracy
by wearing a shirt with the portrait of Mrs. Corazon Aquino, who
had been elected president the year before. This was not a wise
choice as it turned out that he had mixed with supporters of the
deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had handed him a few
angry blows. The Belgian second laughed when he told the story,
saying: "The Dutch will find it a good joke of course," hinting at
the deplorable Dutch custom of inventing jokes at the expense of
supposedly dense Belgians. But of course this is not what this story
is about. The World Junior Championship in Baguio City was to be
won by Anand, who impressed me a lot with his forceful play,
quick as lightning. 

Once when I watched him disposing once more of a strong
opponent in about twenty moves, spending not more than a quarter
of an hour thinking, I expressed my admiration strongly and the
Israeli player Gad Rechlis asked me: "You think he is so good?"
Yes, I thought Anand was very good. "Well, I don't think he is so
good at all," said Rechlis and he walked away.

Then in the last round Rechlis had to play Anand with black. That
will show him, I thought, but to my surprise Rechlis got a
positionally winning position soon after the opening, without
exerting himself in the least. Eventually Anand squeezed out with a
draw and became World Junior Champion but for a brief time I
had thought: "Rechlis was right and I must have been completely
wrong; Anand isn't so good at all."

Something like that must have crossed the mind of Nigel Short
during the Olympiad in Elista. When playing a tournament in
Kazakhstan, Short had been impressed by the young player
Darmen Sadvakasov, and when England was scheduled to play
Kazakhstan at the Olympiad, Short warned his teammate Jon
Speelman, who was to play Sadvakasov, that this young guy was
really good. Then to his surprise Short saw Speelman dispose of
Sadvakasov with consumate ease.

With Anand everything eventually turned out alright eventually as
it did with Sadvakasov. Early this month Sadvakasov won the
World Junior Championship in the Indian city Calcutta. The very
top young players consider themselves too mature to compete in a
youth championship. Leko, Ponomariov, Movsesian and Bacrot
did not take part and because of this, the Vietnamese GM Dao
Thien Hai was the highest rated player in the championship. He
shared third place with the Greek Banikas, who won the bronze
medal on tie-breaks. Banikas was the only non-Asian player
among the top four, as second place was won by the Chinese GM
Zhang Zhong. The girls championship was won by the Vietnamese
Hoang Thang Trang. We have seen the break-through of Chinese
chess, now the Vietnamese are coming.

The Dutch participant Ruud Janssen shared fifth place. It has been
a long time since a Dutch chessplayer finished so high in a 
World Junior Championship. Looking back at the year 1998, as one tends
to do in these days, we Dutch happily notice that this was the year
that many young Dutch players suddenly had wonderful results.
Erik van den Doel became a grandmaster and found his place
among the very best of Dutch players, Dennis de Vreugt became
European champion in his age group and the eleven year-old
Daniel Stellwagen proved himself a match for masters and
grandmasters during the tournament in Hoogeveen.

White: Mirzoev (Azerbaidzjan) Black: Sadvakasov 1. d2-d4
Ng8-f6 2. Ng1-f3 c7-c5 3. c2-c4 c5xd4 4. Nf3xd4 e7-e6 5. g2-g3
Qd8-b6 6. Bf1-g2 Bf8-c5 7. e2-e3 Nb8-c6 8. Nd4-b3 Bc5-b4+ 9.
Bc1-d2 a7-a5 10. 0-0 a5-a4 11. Nb3-c1 It is not quite clear why he
prefers this passive move to the natural 11. Nd4 11...d7-d5 12.
c4xd5 e6xd5 13. Nb1-c3 0-0 14. Nc1-d3 d5-d4 15. Nd3xb4
Nc6xb4 16. Nc3xa4 Qb6-b5 Black on the contrary plays with
heart-warming agressiveness. It is not at all obvious at this moment
that he has enough for the sacrificed pawn. 17. b2-b3 d4xe3 18.
Bd2xe3 Bc8-g4 19. Qd1-d6 Nb4-c2 20. Qd6-c5 Qb5-e2 21.
Ra1-c1 Ra8-c8 22. Qc5-b6 Bg4-f3 23. Bg2xf3 Qe2xf3 24. Be3-c5
Nf6-d7 25. Qb6-b5 (See Diagram)

After this things turn out badly for white. Short indicates in "The
Sunday Telegraph" that white should have played 25. Qd6 Nxc5 26.
Nxc5 Rfd8 27. Nd7. It is rather quaint to put the knight on a square
where it is unpleasantly pinned, but black cannot profit easily from
that. 25...Rc8xc5 26. Qb5xd7 Going from bad to worse. The only
small chance of salvation was the queen sacrifice 26. Nxc5 Nd4
27. Qd3 Ne2+ 28. Qxe2 Qxe2 29. Nd7 (Short) 26...Nc2-e3
Another move that white had overlooked. 27. f2xe3 Rc5xc1 28.
Rf1xc1 Qf3xe3+ 29. Kg1-g2 Qe3xc1 30. Qd7xb7 Qc1-c2+ 31.
Kg2-h3 Qc2-f5+ 32. Kh3-g2 Rf8-e8 White resigned.

White: Soln (Slovenia) Black: Janssen 

In the Duch magazine Schaaknieuws Janssen wrote about his
opponent: "I didn't like this boy." Maybe that was the reason that
in his report he rather loosely called him "Primoz", which
according to my sources is only the Christian name of the
Slovenian player.

1. d2-d4 Ng8-f6 2. c2-c4 e7-e6 3. Ng1-f3 b7-b6 4. a2-a3 Bc8-a6
5. Qd1-c2 c7-c5 6. d4-d5 e6xd5 7. c4xd5 g7-g6 8. Bc1-f4 d7-d6
9. Nb1-d2 Bf8-g7 10. e2-e4 Ba6xf1 11. Ke1xf1 0-0 12. Nd2-c4
Nf6-e8 Dangerously passive. According to Janssen the right way
was 12...b5 13. Nxd6 Nh5. 13. Qc2-b3 Qd8-e7 14. Ra1-e1
Nb8-d7 15. h2-h4 Nd7-e5 Not a move one likes to play. 16. h4-h5
Ne5xc4 17. Qb3xc4 Bg7xb2 18. e4-e5 d6xe5 19. Bf4xe5 During
the game Janssen was much more afraid of 19. Qb3. 19...Ne8-d6
20. h5xg6 Bb2xe5 21. g6xh7+ Kg8-h8 White's piece sacrifice
looks dangerous for black, but everything holds. 22. Qc2 f6 23.
Nh4 Qd7 doesn't lead to anything clear for white. 22. Qc4-g4 f7-f5
23. Qg4-h5 Nd6-e4 (See Diagram)

Now white should have regained his material with 24. Rxe4 fxe4
25. Nxe5 Rf6 26. Ng6, with an unclear position according to
Janssen. 24. Nf3-h4 This way white stays a piece down.
24...Rf8-f6 25. Nh4xf5 Qe7-d7 26. Re1xe4 Rf6xf5 27. Qh5-e2
Qd7xd5 28. Rh1-h3 Ra8-f8 29. f2-f3 Be5-d4 30. g2-g4 Rf5-e5
31. Re4xe5 Qd5xe5 32. Qe2-a2 Qe5-e3 White resigned.

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
NRC-Handelsblad December 19, 1998. 

Copyright 1998 Hans Ree, All Rights Reserved.