Berelovich wins 3rd BDO

Has the Dutch chess calendar ever been so busy? Besides the premi?ɬ®re of the Euwe Stimulans and the sequel of the NH Tournament, another Dutch event already saw its third edition this month: the BDO Chess Tournament in Haarlem. Yesterday the tourney finished with a good last round with a lot of fighting games, where GM Aleksandar Berelovich improved his final score in the Premier group some more (he had already secured clear first in the penultimate round) to 7?Ǭ? out of 9, two points more than IM Daan Brandenburg, GM Karel van der Weide and GM Attila Czebe.

The BDO Chess Tournament was played 18 - 26 August in the Ambassador City Center Hotel in Haarlem, The Netherlands. [Photo removed.] The rate of play was 40 moves in 2 hours followed by one hour to finish the game. There were two round-robins: the Premier Tournament especially set up for scoring Grandmaster or Master norms (and a first prize of ?¢‚Äö¬¨ 750), and the Challenger Tournament that gives (local) Dutch talents an opportunity to promote to next year's main group (grabbing ?¢‚Äö¬¨ 300 along the way).

Final standings BDO Premier Tournament:

 1. Aleksandar Berelovich  UKR   GM    2587    7,5
 2. Daan Brandenburg       NED   IM    2434    5,5
 3. Karel van der Weide    NED   GM    2512    5,5
 4. Attilla Czebe          HUN   GM    2519    5,5
 5. Roeland Pruijssers     NED   IM    2427    5,0
 6. Robert Ris             NED   IM    2395    4,5
 7. Xander Wemmers         NED   FM    2385    3,5
 8. Christian Richter      GER   FM    2412    3,0
 9. Yochanan Afek          ISR   IM    2350    3,0
10. Piet Peelen            NED   IM    2330    2,0

Jeffrey van Vliet won the Challenger group and qualified for the Premier 2008.

Here some nice (at least for the winners) fragments from the Premier Tournament: