Wesley So Leads Univé Crown Group at Half-way Point

During the first and only rest day of the Univé Tournament's Crown Group, Wesley So enjoys a full-point lead. On Tuesday the Philippine grandmaster won against Robin van Kampen to reach a score of 2.5/3. Van Kampen is the only player with a 50 percent score. GMs Maxim Rodshtein and Viktor Moskalenko are tied for first place with 4.5/5 in the open group.

Photos courtesy of the tournament website

Monday's second round saw two draws in the Crown Group. Wesley So defended with the Berlin, and Mickey Adams apparently didn't feel like playing the ending but chose the super solid 5.Re1. The players followed the game Nakamura-Carlsen, played in St Louis, Missouri last month - the city where So is studying. Also in this game White's bishop pair was not strong enough to create serious chances.

The all-Dutch encounter Van Kampen vs. Van Wely was the third draw between the two GMs. They played a Kan Sicilian and Black's typical break 12...d5 did not immediately equalize, but White didn't have much either. The a5-pawn was weak, and later it allowed Black to open the b-file when the position was completely balanced.

The next day, Van Wely and Adams drew in a topical line of the Nimzo-Indian that quickly leads to an ending. The game lasted 37 moves, but the first 29 (!) had been played before! There was no difference because the double rook ending was always a draw.

The two leaders, Wesley So and Robin van Kampen, played each other and this was an irregular Queen's Gambit Declined. So's 5.e3 and 6.b3 had been tried by Vassily Ivanchuk recently, but So deviated himself, even though Ivanchuk could have improved with an early Nf3-e5. 

So's 14.Ba6! made it clear that White did have a slight plus and Van Kampen couldn't find a good solution. A few moves later he had hanging pawns and a doubled f-pawn, and so it was clear Black was going to suffer for a while. But... was it really lost? Was 25...d4 necessary? And could Black have defended actively in the ending? Lots of questions, and so the players analyzed the game together for a long time.

@SusanPolgar After analysing the endgame extensively @wesleySo93 starts analysing the opening too. No time for dinner pic.twitter.com/dpdGTGCeVL

— Lennart Ootes (@Lennart_Ootes) October 22, 2013

Univé 2013 | Crown Group | Round 3 standings

In the open group Maxim Rodshtein and Viktor Moskalenko are tied for first place with 4.5/5. They drew their mutual game in round 4 but let's look at the draw on board 2, which was a fascinating fight that started with the Noteboom Variation:

The next day Rodshtein beat Levin in a Berlin Ruy Lopez:

As always, the venue is the town hall in Hoogeveen

Moskalenko won against Krasenkow, using the Dutch:

Univé 2013 | Open Group | Round 5 standings (top 30)

(Full standings here)

The 17th Univé Chess Tournament takes place 18-26 October, 2013 in the town hall of Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. As always there is a Crown Group, an Open Group and two Amateur Groups. The Crown Group is a double round robin with games on Sunday-Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday.

Three generations of Dutch chess in the press room: Robin van Kampen, Jorden van Foreest (who became European Champion U14 last week) and Loek van Wely

Jorden beat his younger brother Lucas in round 4