In the final match for the Dutch Women’s Championship, Machteld van Foreest has taken the lead with a solid victory over Anne Haast. After some rather provocative opening play, Haast landed in a passive position, and she sacrificed an exchange to obtain more activity. This did work, but the lack of material was eventually too big to be able to save the game.

In the men’s final, Erwin l’Ami gave off his first half in this tournament. Against Robby Kevlishvili, l’Ami again tried to work one step at a time, but Kevlishvili defended neatly until deep in the rook ending, and was never really in danger: draw.

In the remaining women’s matches, Maaike Keetman went down quite quickly in the struggle for third place. Against Eline Roebers, a mistake right after the opening became fatal for her. The struggle for fifth place was the most time-consuming. Robin Duson created a remote passed pawn, earning her a piece against Anna-Maja Kazarian, but after that, the latter kept defending extremely tenaciously. Whether it was winning for Duson all the time is a mystery, but after Kazarian lost her final pawn, and couldn’t conquer the final white pawn, the game ended relatively soon after all.

In the A-group, it was quite a successful day for the Dutch participants. Nick Maatman held the leader, Hagen Poetsch, to a draw, enabling Pranav Anand to catch up with the German again. The Indian Anand won after an exchange sacrifice by Stefan Macak didn’t produce the desired effect. Rick Lahaye, who became Dutch Open Champion last summer, defeated grandmaster Alexander Kovchan with Black in a dynamic game. He is now one point behind the two leaders, just like Nico Zwirs, who beat the American Ellen Wang today, and the German Valentin Buckels who got the better of Tim Grutter. In the sub-top, the Frisian clash between Amir Nicolai and Migchiel de Jong ended in a win for Nicolai.