Queen sacrifices in Amsterdam

The Grand Chess Tour recently took over chess coverage for two weeks (and with Garry Kasparov playing in St. Louis they’ve snatched a couple of days more!) so we’d like to take a brief look at some of the other action you may have missed. Queens were sacrificed with abandon at the Dutch Championship, a 10-year-old beat an experienced grandmaster in Corsica, 17-year-old Zhansaya Abdumalik beat three GMs to score her first GM norm at the World Open, Anatoly Karpov and other legends were in action in Spain and there’s been some wild chess at the Russian Higher League.

18-year-old Jorden van Foreest’s bid to defend his Dutch Championship title didn’t get off to the best of starts. Sipke Ernst’s knockout blow here can be filed under “moves we’d all love to play”:

30…Qxe3!! The attacking potential of Black’s rook, knights and bishop is just phenomenal, and Jorden threw in the towel after 31.fxe3 fxe4+ 32.Nf3 (32.Ke1 Ng2+ 33.Ke2 Rf2#) 32…Rxf3+ 33.Ke1 Ng2+. It doesn’t get much more convincing than that.

Ernst would go on to tie Loek van Wely after seven rounds, including surviving a tough position in their individual encounter in the final round. That meant they played more chess at a faster time control, and ultimately Loek won his 8th Dutch title with a win in the second tiebreak game. read more at chess24