The Hague Open

I’m back form playing the open Dutch draughts championship. I scored 10 points from 9 games, which is OK, though I really had hoped for 1 point more. In the penultimate round my opponent had played a gambit which was playable, but he didn’t have the better position or anything. However, it complicated matters highly and I made a mistake. In the last round against Veerman I missed a very interesting possibility on the 8th move and instead allowed him to make a 3×3 exchange where after a kept on playing with only a draw in mind, which he indeed got. The other loss was against 5 time Dutch champion Kees Thijssen, who overplayed me. I won three times. A nice positional surrounding game against Groenendijk, an easy combination against Jan de Koning and a very nice game with a Drost gambit against van Drunen. In the end I tied one game too many against weaker players. Next time will be better.