Archive 2023

Between 14 and 23 December the Dutch Championship 2023 was played in Drachten. The tournament was won by Jan Groenendijk with 19 points in 13 games, before Alexander Baliakin also with 19 points. The third and fourth place were for Jitse Slump and Martijn van IJzendoorn, both with 16 points. The final standings can be found on Toernooibase. Groenendijk won the title after a hard fought barrage with Baliakin. The first 5 games ended in a draw, before Baliakin finally collapsed in a very complicated game. Take a look at some fragments from the tournament. Note that the comments are in Dutch(!) round 1 round 2 round 3 round 4 round 5 round 6 round 7 round 8 round 9 round 10 round 11 round 12 round 13 barrage. Also, don't forget to take a look at the entertaining and high quality comments of former world champion Harm Wiersma on YouTube.

In July the Rotterdam Open world cup tournament was played. The tournament was won by Jan Groenendijk with a fantastic score of 16 points in 9 games, before Iurii Anikeev, Simon Harmsma and Martijn van IJzendoorn with 13 points. The complete standings can be found at Toernooibase. Take a look at an extensive number of fragments of the games.

Recently I discovered the Youtube channel Draughts is my life by Yana Yakubovich and Polina Petrusiova. Even though the last contribution is from a couple of years ago, the channel is well worth a visit. For example there is an interesting interview with chess legend Vasily Ivanchuk about draughts. Ivanchuk mentions the following quote from Emanuel Lasker, the chess world champion between 1894 and 1921: "Draughts is the mother of chess". There are many more interviews, for example with Roel Boomstra, Olga Fedorovich and Natalia Sadowska.

In July the Riga Open world cup tournament was played. The tournament was won by Jan Groenendijk before Wouter Sipma and Raimunds Vipulis. The complete standings can be found at Toernooibase. For Groenendijk it was business as usual, since so far this summer he has won every tournament that he played. Take a look at an analysis of the game Groenendijk - Vipulis or at a number of fragments of the other games.

It is now possible to control the autoplay speed in the game analysis pages. After pressing the autoplay button, two buttons with a plus and a minus sign will appear. They can be used to increase or decrease the animation speed. Furthermore the page will automatically scroll up when the current move goes out of scope. To enable the changes a reload of the pages may be needed. See the about page for more information about viewing the game analysis pages.

Gerrit Boom has released a new version of his book Standaardcombinaties een systematische benadering. It is part 66 of the famous PC Blues series by Christiaan Piens. This book is a monumental effort to categorize practical draughts combinations. Take a look at a random selection of examples from the book.

In June a prestigious tournament of the so called SCO countries was played in Ufa. It consisted of rapid and blitz tournaments, and there were players from 14 different countries. The draughts federations of these countries (mostly belonging to BRICS) have recently formed a new association. The rapid tournament was won by Alexander Georgiev with 37 points before Alexei Chizhov with 36 points and Ainur Shaibakov with 31 points. Take a look at some highlights of the games.

Recently the Teus de Mik rapid tournament was played in the province of Utrecht. This tournament is typically played at the end of the draughts season. Take a look at the strategic game Arne van Mourik - Ben Provoost that ended in a very unique position.

The Russian championship 2023 was won by Alexander Georgiev. He scored 13 points in 8 games, 3 more than number two Alexander Getmanski and number three Sergey Belosheev. For the complete results see Toernooibase. One of the highlights of the tournament was the game between Georgiev and Gulyaev.

Recently the semi finals for the Dutch Championship 2023 were played. Take a look at the interesting endgame Simon Harmsma-Erik Ten Hagen from the last round.