Max Euwe Chess Memorial R2: Conquest arrives, Olafsson ill

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

The Max Euwe Memorial Chess Tournament currently on in the beautiful city of Amsterdam has its bagful of stories. Stuart Conquest, who couldn't make it to the first round thanks to British weather, made it eventually to the tournament and took on 17-year old Robin van Kampen in the second round. 

“I planned to take the ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland in the evening and stayed at the airport to get some work done. Then I suddenly heard a last call announcement for a flight to Amsterdam, so I ran to the gate and fortunately they had a seat for,” Conquest explained.

But Fridrik Olafsson suffered stomach problems and had to see a doctor on Tuesday. He could not play his game against Cramling on Tuesday, so this game will be played on the rest day on Thursday, together with Conquest and Arakhamia who still play their first round game.Conquest drew his game as did Van der Sterren and Peng. Monika Socko won a nice game against Kati Arakhamia-Grant. The Scottish champion mishandled the opening completely but somehow managed to get an acceptable position. However, in severe time trouble she lost an important pawn on e6 and the position went downhill pretty fast. 

The games start at 13.00 and you can watch them live at the official website www.euwetoernooi.nl.

Wednesday afternoon will see an event for children, film screening and a lecture by Dr. Jos Uiterwijk on digital developments since Euwe’s time as part of the “Digital Month” series organized by the Amsterdam public library.

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