Judit Polgar launched a fierce attack against Michael Adams. She first sacrificed a pawn, which she recovered, and then sacrificed the exchange, which gave her the right to chase Adams' king around the board for a while.

However, her attack petered out and she took a draw in a difficult endgame.

Topalov launched a fierce attack after Gelfand took the "poison pawn". However, Topalov's attack eventually boiled down to a draw by perpetual check.

Anand got hit by a counter-attack from Shirov. I believe that Shirov could have won. Anand was lucky to be able to take a draw.

Even more unjust were the results of the players who tried too hard to win. Van Wely attacked Piket strongly and lost as a result.

Salov attacked Timman and won Timman's queen, only to find his own king was caught in a noose. (Did Timman really see this all coming, or was he merely lucky?)

The best games were in the Grandmaster B section, which has been virtually ignored because of all the world class players in the A section.

There were many exciting games in the B section, plus Van Der Weil appears to have been the beneficiary of a gross blunder by his opponent, Cherniaev. (That's why these are still B players).

Tal got checkmated in a brilliant attack by Kuijf. Here is that game:

[Final Position]








[Event "Hoogovens"]
[Site "Wijk aan Zee"]
[Date "1998.01.02"]
[Round "14"]
[White "Kuijf,R"]
[Black "Shaked,Tal"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2460"]
[BlackElo "2535"]
[WhiteCountry "NED"]
[BlackCountry "USA"]

1. e4 c5 2. Ne2 e6 3. Nbc3 a6 4. g3 b5 5. Bg2 Bb7 6. O-O b4 7. Na4 Nf6 8. d3 d6 9. a3 a5 10. c3 Nc6 11. d4 cxd4 12. cxd4 d5 13. exd5 Nxd5 14. Nf4 Nce7 15. Nc5 Bc6 16. Nfxe6 fxe6 17. Qh5 g6 18. Qe5 Rg8 19. Bg5 h6 20. Bxe7 Nxe7 21. Bxc6 Nxc6 22. Qxe6 Ne7 23. Ne4 1-0

The game of the round was between Reinderman of The Netherlands and Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan. Kasimdzhanov entered the last round with the fantastic score of 9-1, against opponents rated an average of 2502. This gave Kasimdzhanov a performance rating of 2822!

Kasimdzhanov as white was apparently willing to take a draw in this game, which would give him first prize. He played passively, giving Reinderman a strong attack.

Here is the game: Near the end, I mistakenly believed at first that Kasimdzhanov had turned down a draw by perpetual check. However, if Kasimdzhanov tries to get a perpetual check with 34. Kg2, Reinderman wins with 34. Rxa1 35. Qxa1 Qxd5+ and now Reinderman will simply march his pawn up and eventually make a queen.

This is an interesting endgame to work out.

Instead, Kasimdzhanov shortened the agony by marching his king into checkmate.

Please note, these games come from the official Hoogovens web site. It says Round 14. This was actually the 14th day of play at Hoogovens, including the games in the A section. However, the B section started two days later than the A but made up one day because Saturday, January 31, was a free day for the A section but a playing day for the B section. Therefore, this was actually round 11 for the B section, which had only 12 players.

I mention this because somebody complained about this earlier.

Reinderman achieved his third grandmaster norm and will apparently be awarded the grandmaster title because of this victory.

Sam Sloan

[Final Position]








Analysis Rebel: Mate in- 2 moves Kh5-g4 Qf6-f5+ Kg4-h4 Qf5-g5+ [Event "Hoogovens"]
[Site "Wijk aan Zee"]
[Date "1998.01.02"]
[Round "14"]
[White "Kasimdzhanov,R"]
[Black "Reinderman,D"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2565"]
[BlackElo "2480"]
[WhiteCountry "UZB"]
[BlackCountry "NED"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 Nc6 4. Nc3 e5 5. d3 d6 6. Be2 g6 7. O-O Bg7 8. a3 Nge7 9. Rb1 a5 10. Nd5 O-O 11. Bg5 f6 12. Bd2 Nxd5 13. cxd5 Nd4 14. Nxd4 exd4 15. b4 cxb4 16. axb4 a4 17. b5 f5 18. Ra1 a3 19. exf5 Bxf5 20. Qb3 Re8 21. Bf3 a2 22. Rfc1 g5 23. Rc2 g4 24. Bd1 Bh6 25. g3 Bxd2 26. Rxd2 Re1 27. Kg2 Qg5 28. Rdxa2 Rxa2 29. Qxa2 Bxd3 30. Bxg4 Be4 31. Bf3 Qg4 32. Bxe4 Qxe4 33. Kh3 Qf5 34. Kh4 h5 35. h3 Qf6 36. Kxh5 Re5 37. Kg4 Qf5 0-1

Here is a link: Hoogovens’ Super-Grandmaster Chess Tournament