Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee: In Armageddon, a 21

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Jorden van Foreest at the "Wimbledon of Chess"

Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / ANP

The 21 year old Jorden van Foreest surprisingly won the prestigious chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands.

Van Foreest prevailed against Anish Giri in the tie-break.

Both had led the tournament after 13 rounds with 8.5 points each.

Even before the tie-break it was clear that for the first time since Jan Timman's victory in 1985 a Dutchman would win the tournament again.

For van Foreest, the win in Wijk aan Zee, which is also known as the "Wimbledon of chess", is his greatest career success to date.

"I hope the best is yet to come," said van Foreest. "But I doubt I'll ever be able to top it." He was not yet able to fully understand the victory: "It won't come until I'm in bed tonight and try to sleep".

Van Foreest has been a top talent since 2015 at the latest.

Back then, at the age of 15, he was the youngest Dutchman in history to secure the grandmaster title.

He then played twice in the Masters tournament in Wijk aan Zee, and in 2020 he finished fourth after a good performance.

Before the start of this year's tournament, he was only the eleventh best player in terms of the world Elo ranking compared to his competitors.

However, van Foreest did not lose a single one of the 13 games with classic cooling time, and he also held out world champion Magnus Carlsen.

Van Foreest won four games.

Due to the success, the 21-year-old climbed 30 places in the live world rankings and is now 37.

Decision in the tie-break

Even before the day of the final, it became clear that the decision could be tight.

Several players still had a chance of winning the tournament.

Giri led the table by half a point.

Since he played a draw and van Foreest won his parallel game, the two had to go into the tiebreak.

Van Foreest and Giri each drew in two blitz games.

A so-called Armageddon game followed, in which White has one minute more to think about, but a draw is considered a victory for Black.

Giri gained an advantage with the white pieces, but lost in the end because his thinking time was up.

Third was also surprisingly 18-year-old Andrei Jessipenko, who had defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen, among others.

Carlsen was only sixth after a poor performance for his standards.

The German chess professional Alexander Donchenko took 14th and last place with 3.5 points.

Donchenko had only been nominated two days before the start of the tournament.

Daniil Dubow had to cancel at short notice because of a corona contact.

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