The third day of the Dutch Championship contained a lot of spectacular moments and drama. Erwin l’Ami defeated Sergei Tiviakov in the endgame after a series of highly interesting complications. Robby Kevlishvili won surprisingly against Lucas van Foreest. Kevlishvili made a rather opportunistic exchange sacrifice which, with hindsight, should probably have been accepted. Van Foreest tried something else and landed into slight trouble. After a mistake by Van Foreest, Kevlishvili was able to break through with a passed pawn, which was decisive. The duel between Dimitri Reinderman and reigning champion Max Warmerdam was quite exciting, but ended in a draw.

But all this paled in comparison to what happened in the final phase of the game between Roeland Pruijssers and Erik van den Doel. For a long time, nothing much happened, but after roughly four hours of play, Van den Doel suddenly put his queen on a square where it could be taken immediately. A horrible black-out for the grandmaster from Leiden.

In the Women’s Championship, the two youngest players, Machteld van Foreest (15) and Eline Roebers (16), took the lead with 1½ point. Van Foreest beat the debutante Robin Duson convincingly by grabbing a pawn and fending of all Duson’s attacks. Roebers held the reigning (five-time) champion Anne Haast to a draw with Black, after a slightly dubious opening. Maaike Keetman set up a strong attack after sacrificing a pawn against Anna-Maja Kazarian, obtained a large advantage and won deep in the endgame.

In the Groningen Open, the leaders, Pranav Anand and Hagen Poetsch, made a solid draw, though they played on for a long time. Nico Zwirs and Midas Ratsma ended with the same result. Ruud van Meegen won surprisingly against the German master Valentin Buckels. Several boards lower, sixteen-year-old Loek van der Hagen beat the experienced Frisian master Migchiel de Jong in an excellent game. The twelve-year-old Harry Zheng could not impress in this round: he went down in a regular game against Sjoerd van Roon.