Nguyen Thai Dai Van (CZE) wins the First Saturday August 2017 tournament and his second GM norm!

In a hot summer, in Budapest, from 5th to 15th of August 2017 was held the First Saturday Chess tournament for August 2017. It was a special tournament, where very strong players from all over the world tried and some even succeeded to get an international chess norm.

This edition was special, because we had beauty prizes too for the chessgames, thanks to Dr. Norman Saba from (Tempe, Arizona – USA), who wanted to keep alive the memories of a recent passed away Hungarian chessfriend, Mr. Rozsa Karoly. So, we had this special prize, called Rozsa Karoly beauty prize. The players really worked for it, and there were a lot of games to choose between for the members of the jury, formed from: Mr. GM Zlatko Ilincic, IM Radlovacki Jovan and the Chief Arbiter of the tournament, IA Dombi Rudolf. After days of work the jury found that the game between Balint Vilmos – GM Ivanov Mikhail will get the first shared prize of the beauty tournament. It was a game full of action, with a lot of sacrifices, during the whole game, which ended in a draw, so we had 2 winners. For the second place Balint Vilmos had another game, but this time GM Dobrov Vladimir, was the hero, beating the Hungarian master in 21 moves with white pieces. IM Nguyen Thai Dai Van from Czech Republic got the 3-rd place, almost all of his games were nice, but the jury decided that the victory against IM Minko Vladimir will count.

In the Tournaments, we had 4 groups and different sections, all of them special for some reason.

The GM Group, or the Fair Play Group.

3 GM`s and a lot of youth players tried to show their best in this section. I called it Fair Play group, because we had some real fair play proofs during it, players who would bring the extra queen to the board for a time troubled opponent, or who would ask the arbiter to reset the chessclock, when some of the players were late. So not only hard fighters, but real sportsmen in the Playing Hall.

After a very interesting fight, in the last round, the winner was IM Nguyen Thai Dai Van, from Czech Republic, who is only 16. The youngest and the strongest in the tournament in the end, and managed to get his second GM norm, with 7 points out of 9 rounds. In the last round he beats with white the tournament leader at that point, also the highest rated GM Dobrov Vladimir, with a psychological knight sacrifice. Computers showed that wasn’t the best option, but the opponent could not find the best defending moves, so the young czech International Master, got the well deserved norm and the 1st place of this edition.

IM NGUYEN Thai Dai Van (CZE)

Future IM Kaczur Forian came second, he achieved the IM norm, but he is already on the FIDE list for the next Board to get the title. Anyway his 6 points out of 9 was a strong achievement, losing just one game, against another young player from Germany: FM Hoeglauer Patrick, who was very close to get his IM norm but, he would need another 0.5 points.

FM Patrick HÖGLAUER (GER)

Third place was GM Dobrov Vladimir, very solid player during the tournament, he was in trouble in the last round, but played a strong and high level chess, as the Grandmasters do.

Final Ranking after 9 Rounds

The IM Group, or the Group of Joy

The IM section was also very tough, with 2 GM`s playing there, very experienced GM Kantsler Boris from Israel and GM Ilincic Zlatko from Serbia.

GM Boris KANTSLER (ISR)

The only person who achieved a norm here, was a nice young lady from China, Yao Lan. She`ve got her last norm for the Woman International Master (WIM) title, and was very happy about it. Her chess was solid and usually she was fighting untill the end of the round, not once she was the last board playing in the tournament, and fighting all the time for her title.

YAO, Lan (CHN)

The Group was won by GM Kanstler Boris, who made draws with the 2nd and the 3rd place in the tournament, and won all of his other games. Very experienced GM tricked his opponents and took a well deserved 1st place with 8 points out of 9 games, and managed to win also 16 Elo points!

2nd shared place was GM Zlatko Ilincic, who played also strong games, but he got in the end 5 draws and 4 wins, and had a hard fight in the last round, for the second place, with CM Nguyen Van Thanh, from Vietnam, who needed a win for the IM norm, and to be second in the tournament, but in the end, Zlatko was the one really pushing for a win, but the different coloured bishop and queen endgame, ended in a draw even if Mr. Ilincic had a pawn up. The vietnamese tried to win the game, fought hard, but in the end he had to postpone his celebration for the IM norm for at least one more tournament.

Final Ranking after 9 Rounds

It is interesting that only 4 players out of ten reached at least 50% in this group.

The FM Group, or the Group of experience

If we had Grandmasters in the IM Group, why we shouldn’t have IM`s in the FM group? We had!

IM Eperjesi Laszlo Dr. and IM Farago Sandor were the strongest players in the group, they were the experience factor in the front of the group, but also a lot of other experienced players in this section, who were more than 2200 or 2100 in their younger age.

Only Sivanesan Subramanian from Malaysia could fight at the same level, he was losing to Mr. Eperjesi, but managed to win against Farago Sandor, so made 7.5 points out of 9 like IM Eperjesi. We could see interesting games, also a very gifted young Hungarian boy in the tournament, Juhasz Agoston, only 12 years old, who managed to make + 2 in the final standings, and will be a player with great chess career ahead, I am sure.

Final Ranking after 9 Rounds

Sivanesan Subramanian (MAS)

The Development Group, or the Group of permanent action

The most of the action happened in the last section, the development section. The players never gave up there, always fighting, and the action was ongoing in the games from the first half an hour till the end. Even if they were finishing the games usually sooner than the other sections, we could saw a lot of interesting, and sometimes, romantic chess.

The winner was the young Mr. Muskath Maximillian from England, who was unrated or without FIDE rating to this tournament, and he almost managed to finish the Tournament in the first place and undefeated, but in the end he lost to Mr. Brassoi Tarnovski Aurel in the last round. It was interesting to see Mr. Bogad Peter`s attacking style during the games all the time he was fighting for initiative, and for attack and finished 2nd in the end.

MUSKATH, Max (ENG)

Final Ranking after 10 Rounds

For me, it was a great pleasure to be in Budapest again at this tournament, this time I was the Chief Arbiter of the event. It was a very entertaining experience, for all the players and the arbiter. I think also the organizer, Mr. IO Nagy Laszlo, could be happy that he managed to orchestrate a tournament of this level, it is just a very nice ambassador for chess and I can recommend the tournament for any player if he wants a hard fighting, very balanced, and full of action chess event.

The traditional group photo, 2017 August

The next First Saturday events in BUDAPEST: 2-12 Sept, 7-17 Oct, 4-14 Nov, 2-12 Dec etc
Contact: IO Nagy Laszlo
www.firstsaturday.hu
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There will be THIRD SATURDAY GM-IM tournaments in Djenovici, Montenegro: 21-29 Oct, 18-26 Nov, 16-24 Dec, etc. directly after the First Saturday Budapest events.
The organizer will be Mr FM Goran Tomic - https://thirdsaturday.wordpress.com/