Big Scores For Granda (Andorra), Howell (Leiden)
On Sunday, GM Julio Granda Zuniga won the Andorra Open with 8.0/9, while 1100 km up north GM David Howell did even better, scoring 8.5/9 in Leiden, The Netherlands.
Andorra Open
The 33rd Andorra Open took place July 18-26 in the St Gothard Hotel in Andorra, the microstate located in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. It was a nine-round Swiss with a total prize fund of 10,500 euros.
Besides Vishy Anand and Boris Gelfand there is another player who's continuously showing that it's possible to maintain a high level of play well into your forties: 48-year-old Peruvian GM Julio Granda Zuniga. He repeated last year's success and won the tournament, this time with the fantastic score of 8.0/9, good for a 2814 performance rating.
“It's always good to win a tournament but in this case I was feeling well, I played creatively and with fighting spirit,” said Granda in an interview. “I deserved to win this tournament, maybe more than at other occasions!”
Granda drew two games and won the other seven. Among his victims was the top seed, GM Vlad Tkachiev. The Peruvian grandmaster played a remarkable opening: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 and now 4.e3 Be7 5.a3!? 0-0 6.b4!?.
It seems like something you would encounter in a Tuesday night club game instead of a battle between two 2650+ players! Tkachiev was fine out of the opening, but after that he was simply outplayed:
Also in the final round Granda played something offbeat — although maybe the time has come that we should consider 1.b3 a main opening! It was the same story: Black was OK after the opening but played some inaccurate moves (and then gave away a piece in one move).
2015 Andorra Open | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Name | Rtg | Pts. |
| 1 | 2 | Granda Zuniga Julio E GM | 2652 | 8 |
| 2 | 5 | Vovk Andrey GM | 2621 | 7,5 |
| 3 | 3 | Vovk Yuri GM | 2632 | 7 |
| 4 | 11 | Kogan Artur GM | 2526 | 7 |
| 5 | 4 | Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo GM | 2625 | 7 |
| 6 | 13 | Riff Jean-Noel GM | 2502 | 7 |
| 7 | 1 | Tkachiev Vladislav GM | 2661 | 6,5 |
| 8 | 8 | Lagarde Maxime GM | 2544 | 6,5 |
| 9 | 9 | Demuth Adrien GM | 2531 | 6,5 |
| 10 | 19 | Abergel Thal GM | 2440 | 6,5 |
| 11 | 10 | Arizmendi Martinez Julen Luis GM | 2529 | 6,5 |
| 12 | 12 | Narciso Dublan Marc GM | 2521 | 6,5 |
| 13 | 15 | Aloma Vidal Robert IM | 2451 | 6,5 |
| 14 | 16 | Pulvett Marin Daniel IM | 2446 | 6,5 |
| 15 | 34 | Jolly Jean-Francois IM | 2345 | 6 |
| 16 | 33 | Trepat Herranz Joan FM | 2351 | 6 |
| 17 | 7 | Gozzoli Yannick GM | 2567 | 6 |
| 18 | 6 | Vazquez Igarza Renier GM | 2581 | 6 |
| 19 | 21 | Antoli Royo Joaquin Miguel IM | 2430 | 6 |
| 20 | 14 | Asis Gargatagli Hipolito IM | 2472 | 6 |
(Full final standings here.)
Leiden Chess Tournament
The Leiden Chess Tournament was held July 17-26 in the Denksportcentrum (Mind Sports Center) in Leiden, The Netherlands. It was a nine-round Swiss with a total prize fund of 5,500 euros.
Leiden is the city where Rembrandt lived, and has the oldest Dutch university, founded in 1575. It's also a place where English GM David Howell likes to play chess.
In 1970 Leiden hosted a group of four with Mikhail Botvinnik, Bent Larsen, Boris Spassky and Hein Donner, and in recent years it's been the location of one of the summer tournaments in The Netherlands — where Howell has now participated four times already.
“I don't know, it's just a pleasant atmosphere. And for me it's a good way to prepare for the British Championship,” Howell told Chess.com. Well, he can hardly complain about that preparation!
Even before Leiden Howell was the clear favorite at the British, but now even more. He won the tournament with 8.5/9 and a 2895 performance rating, and took his rating well over 2700 for the first time in his career.
Howell's strongest opponent, GM Evgeny Postny from Israel, was the only one who held a draw, and he finished second. Third came former top player GM Predrag Nikolic, who went down to the tournament winner in a long and tough battle:
A very interesting game, which deserves to be studied deeply, was Howell's fight with IM Arghyadip Das in round seven. The exchange sacrifice in the opening is known, and played by e.g. Romain Edouard and Hikaru Nakamura. What happened after the opening was crazy.
2015 Leiden Chess Tournament | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Name | Score | Fed. | Rtg | Perf |
| 1 | GM Howell, David W L | 8.5 | ENG | 2698 | 2895 |
| 2 | GM Postny, Evgeny | 7.0 | ISR | 2642 | 2675 |
| 3 | GM Nikolic, Predrag | 6.5 | BIH | 2601 | 2621 |
| 4 | GM Chatalbashev, Boris | 6.0 | BUL | 2516 | 2543 |
| 5 | GM Tiviakov, Sergei | 6.0 | NED | 2639 | 2512 |
| 6 | GM Milov, Leonid | 6.0 | GER | 2462 | 2491 |
| 7 | IM De Jong, Jan-Willem | 6.0 | NED | 2448 | 2478 |
| 8 | IM Das, Arghyadip | 6.0 | IND | 2457 | 2526 |
| 9 | Pijpers, Arthur | 6.0 | NED | 2433 | 2431 |
| 10 | GM Petrov, Marian | 5.5 | BUL | 2487 | 2383 |
| 11 | Van Overdam, Julian | 5.5 | NED | 2367 | 2351 |
| 12 | FM Erwich, Frank | 5.5 | NED | 2361 | 2319 |
| 13 | Johansson, Gunnar | 5.5 | SWE | 2223 | 2236 |
| 14 | Wallgren, Ulf | 5.5 | SWE | 2141 | 2160 |
| 15 | Oosterom, Erik | 5.5 | NED | 2043 | 2221 |
| 16 | Van der Marel, Bert | 5.0 | NED | 2161 | 2411 |
| 17 | IM Van Delft, Merijn | 5.0 | NED | 2428 | 2241 |
| 18 | FM Gindi, Shachar | 5.0 | ISR | 2336 | 2256 |
| 19 | Wilschut, Peter | 5.0 | NED | 2238 | 2205 |
| 20 | Van der Raaf, Erik | 5.0 | NED | 2110 | 2164 |
(Full final standings here.)
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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