General Information
The Match
The Chess Events Maastricht Foundation is proud to announce a match between the Dutch Grandmasters Erwin L' Ami (ELO 2581) and Daniel Stellwagen (ELO 2625). They will play four games from Monday 3 till Thursday 6 March 2008 in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Both players are allowed to use a computer during the encounters, like in Advanced Chess.
The time limits are 40 moves in two hours, followed by 20 in one hour and finally 15 minutes plus 30 seconds per move. Advanced Chess with the time limits of Classic Chess is called Complete Chess. The first moves are obliged: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6, the Two Knights Defence. The first and second game will continue with the main line 4. d4, the third and fourth game with the classical move 4. Ng5.
The match is organized by the Chess Events Maastricht Foundation and the Institute for Knowledge and Agent Technology (IKAT) of the Maastricht University. The venue is IKAT at the 2nd floor, 6A Minderbroedersberg, Maastricht. The games will start at 13.00 PM CET. You can follow the games live on the Internet. Once again, Geurt Gijssen will be the arbiter during the match. This match is paid from extra profit of "Kantoren X". The organizers were Van Boom and Slettenhaar. Therefore, we regret the negative press comments on Van Boom.
Both young grandmasters have played in Maastricht before. In 2004 Stellwagen won against German talent GM David Baramidze 2,5-1,5 and one year later he convincingly won 3-1 against GM Loek van Wely. Erwin L´Ami played in Maastricht last year. He played a short match against the computer chess program Zappa, which ended 1-1.
Two Knights Defence
The open game 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 has been popular since the beginning of modern chess. Tactics after 3. Bc4 were popular at first. Nowadays the positional 3. Bb5 is usual. A return to 3. Bc4 might be effective in open tournaments. Black has two important answers: 3. .. Nf6 and 3. .. Bc5. This year we will investigate the Two Knights 3. .. Nf6. A transition to the quiet Bishop’s Opening by 4. d3 will be skipped. Instead we will play the old gambits 4. d4 and 4. Ng5.
- 4. d4 has no name. We will call it the Euwe Gambit, because Max played this move in his early career and mentioned it as main line of the Two Knights in an openings book. It gets this name in two games between young Dutch grandmasters. White has two choices after 4. .. exd4: the old 5. 0-0 Bc5 (analysed by Max Lange in 1854) and modern 5. e5 d5.
- 4. Ng5 and Black sacrifices material by 4. .. d5, the classical line, or 4. .. Bc5, the Traxler.
We discussed the Traxler on January 5, 2008 and found the line 5. Bxf7† Ke7 6. Bb3 better for White. Thereafter, we had chess pie and saw chess movies.
Erwin L 'Ami
Erwin L 'Ami [5-4-1985] was bitten by the chess bug at age 5, when his dad made the introduction and faithfully took him to the local chess club on a regular basis ever since. In 2005 L’Ami scored a strong 9/13 in the Corus GM C group, and he must have been quite motivated with his ‘upgrading’, because he was the best Dutch player in the B-group in 2006 and 2007. He is an appreciated member of the Dutch Olympic team. He crossed the 2600 ELO mark, then slipped back a bit, but surely it is a number that will be crossed again in the near future.
In the Dutch league Erwin maintains a near perfect performance, hardly conceding the occasional draw. He did not fare as well in the German league, scoring a winless 4.5/11 – a very atypical result for him. His best events for 2007 were the Dutch championships: in the open he tied for first with 7/9, and in the closed his 7/11 was good enough for a tie for third place. His main rating drop came in the Staunton Memorial (5/11) and the Siegman tournament (4/9). L’Ami indeed managed to better his 2006 Corus B of 7 points, with a 7.5/13 in 2007. He scored 6/13 in the Corus-B group in January 2008, his current ELO is 2581.
Daniël Stellwagen
Daniël Stellwagen [1-3-1987] is Holland's biggest talent since Jan Timman. At the age of 15 he gained his IM-title in 2002 and achieved two GM-results in the Corus Tournament 2003 and the Dutch Championship 2003. In 2004 Daniel Stellwagen won the first Complete Chess Match against the German talent David Baramidze 2,5-1,5. Daniel continued his previous rating run through 2007. He scored a solid 7/13 in last year’s Corus B, and since then amassed over 50 Elo points -- not only meeting the 2600 milestone, but also building a nice cushion over it, to reach a new all time high.
Stellwagen had a few fine results this year, including a tie for first place in the strong Dutch national championship, where he scored an impressive 8/11 without a single loss. No less noteworthy was his excellent result in the German league of 9/12 versus Grandmasters, for a gain of 29 rating points. He also did well in Mexico finishing with 5.5/8 in Morelia. His only somewhat disappointing result came in Vlissingen where 2 late losses left him with 5.5/8. Outside of chess the sympathetic Dutchman got his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry, and is now pursuing his Masters in a Chemistry and Physics program in Utrecht University. He scored 6/13 in the Corus-B group in January 2008, his current ELO is 2625.