Univé Chess: Giri-Shirov, Jobava-Timman and the Open
The traditional Univé Chess festival in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands is under way with two 6-game matches (Giri-Shirov and Jobava-Timman) and an open tournament.
Matches
Anish Giri has made an excellent impression so far in his home country. He won the first two games and drew the third against Alexei Shirov to further cement his number-seven spot in the world rankings. Baadur Jobava won the second match game against Jan Timman. After a rest day, the matches will resume on Thursday.
Giri won the first game as Black from a Giuoco Pianissimo, where Shirov's opening play wasn't very effective. After 20 moves Black had a slight but long-term edge, but there White's position was still holdable. Shirov decided to sharpen the position, but that backfired:
And then the Dutchman also won the next game, partly thanks to excellent preparation. Shirov repeated a game he played in the Bundesliga earlier this year, but Giri had found an improvement for his opponent of that game. Shirov tried his luck with a position that looked like a fortress, but wasn't.
Baadur Jobava is leading 2-1 at halftime in his match with Jan Timman. He won the second game, where both players had time trouble and the 62-year-old Dutch legend blundered twice. Jobava hadn't seen everything either, but just a little more than his opponent!
Giri-Shirov (Univé Match) 2014 | Score
| # | Name | Rtg | Perf | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 | G6 | Pts |
| 1 | Giri,Anish | 2768 | 2970 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 2.5/3 | |||
| 2 | Shirov,Alexei | 2691 | 2489 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 0.5/3 |
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Jobava-Timman (Univé Match) 2014 | Score
| # | Name | Rtg | Perf | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 | G6 | Pts |
| 1 | Jobava,Baadur | 2721 | 2970 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 2.0/3 | |||
| 2 | Timman,Jan | 2597 | 2489 | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1.0/3 |
The tournament is a bit different from previous years after some big changes in the organization. Tournament director Jeroen van den Berg (who also runs the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee) was removed by the board, and then the whole team arbiters and press service chose Van den Berg's side.
The new tournament director is GM Loek van Wely, who got rid of the old formula of a 4-player and went for matches instead. Another novelty is that Van Wely is experimenting with measuring the heart rate of the players.
Giri and Jobava have been wearing bands around their wrist, which is connected to an app on Van Wely's iPad. Conclusions haven't been drawn yet, and there have been some technical problems, but it's an interesting attempt to add something to the sport.
Open
Six rounds have been played in the open tournament and currently Victor Mikhalevski (Israel) and Andrey Vovk (Ukraine) are tied for first place with 5 points. Among the GMs on 4.5 are veterans Alexander Beliavsky and Oleg Romanishin. The open group has 67 players from 14 federations, with 11 GMs and 7 IMs.
Vovk's draw with Canadian IM Aman Hableton was interesting:
The other leader was somewhat lucky against Alexander Beliavsky:
Univé Chess | Open section, Round 6 Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Name | Score | Fed. | Rating | TPR | W-We |
| 1 | GM Vovk, Andrey | 5.0 | UKR | 2637 | 2695 | +0.47 |
| 2 | GM Mikhalevski, Victor | 5.0 | ISR | 2550 | 2699 | +1.17 |
| 3 | GM Beliavsky, Alexander G | 4.5 | SLO | 2618 | 2628 | +0.23 |
| 4 | GM Roiz, Michael | 4.5 | ISR | 2585 | 2590 | +0.17 |
| 5 | GM Hansen, Eric | 4.5 | CAN | 2574 | 2603 | +0.36 |
| 6 | GM Heberla, Bartlomiej | 4.5 | POL | 2567 | 2529 | -0.09 |
| 7 | GM Stocek, Jiri | 4.5 | CZE | 2551 | 2534 | +0.11 |
| 8 | GM Romanishin, Oleg M | 4.5 | UKR | 2490 | 2476 | +0.02 |
| 9 | GM Kasparov, Sergey | 4.5 | BLR | 2484 | 2340 | -0.74 |
| 10 | GM Ernst, Sipke | 4.0 | NED | 2555 | 2510 | -0.17 |
| 11 | GM Malaniuk, Vladimir P | 4.0 | UKR | 2495 | 2368 | -0.78 |
| 12 | IM Hambleton, Aman | 4.0 | CAN | 2456 | 2566 | +0.95 |
| 13 | IM Guramishvili, Sopiko | 4.0 | GEO | 2381 | 2433 | +0.45 |
| 14 | WGM Rudolf, Anna | 4.0 | HUN | 2314 | 2369 | +0.46 |
| 15 | IM Franco Alonso, Alejandro | 3.5 | ESP | 2454 | 2245 | -1.41 |
| 16 | IM Antoli Royo, Joaquin Migue | 3.5 | ESP | 2450 | 2372 | -0.41 |
| 17 | IM Ris, Robert | 3.5 | NED | 2427 | 2370 | -0.27 |
| 18 | FM Schoorl, Rob | 3.5 | NED | 2330 | 2201 | -0.94 |
| 19 | IM De Jong, Migchiel | 3.5 | NED | 2321 | 2320 | +0.04 |
| 20 | FM Vedder, Richard | 3.5 | NED | 2283 | 2196 | -0.66 |
Thanks to Peter Boel who writes the daily reports for the official website.
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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