Erwin l'Ami invited in Corus A-Group 2011: AD article - english translation

 Erwin l’Ami with the elite

Wijk aan Zee/Woerden

The chess player Erwin l’Ami faces a great new challenge. Coming from Woerden, 25 years old, he will participate in the Grandmasters A Group from the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, one of the strongest tournaments in the world. There he will encounter, amongst others, the top 4 chess players in the world’s rating list.

              HENK J.DE KLEIJNEN

The invitation for Erwin l’Ami is surprising, because normally the Dutch chess players could play in the tournament’s A-Group (recently the name has changed from Corus into Tata Steel Chess Tournament) only by obtaining the national title or by winning the B-Group of the tournament. The tournament director Jeroen van den Berg explains this as follows: ”We chose him not only because of his steady chess growth, but also because of his solid style. He is more or less unbeatable. At the same time, Erwin’s chess style of making many draws, makes it practically difficult to win the national championship or the B-group.

“This is the recognition of his steady growth and solid style. Hardly anybody beats him.”

Jeroen van den Berg- tournament director Tata Steel Chess Tournament

Also because, with such a strong field as in the B-group, he is always above expectation, he deserves, according to us, a debut at the highest level.”

Amongst the 14 players in the A-group, we also find two other active Grandmasters. Jan Smeets, the same age as l’Ami and former  national champion, is playing for the third time in a row.

The third is 16-year old Anish Giri. The youngest Dutch champion in history, assured his Grandmaster title in 2009 in Wijk aan Zee, at the time the youngest grandmaster in the world. He won last year’s B group, leaving l’Ami behind him.

Loek van Wely, in the past a regular participant of the country’s most famous chess tournament, announced he will spend the upcoming year with other things besides chess. Van Wely, Giri and l’Ami were members of the Oranje Equipe which participated in the Olympiad in Siberia.

With two potential participants is still being negotiated, but it is already obvious that the tournament - which will be held in the second part of January 2011 and traditionally attracts a lot of chess fans who try to get a prize in one of the lower groups – will be stronger than the previous edition.

CARLSEN

Certain is the participation of the world’s number 1 to 4 of the current world ranking list: Viswanathan Anand from India (World Champion), the young Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) and Levon Aronian (Armenia).

The Bulgarian Veselin Topalov who is currently number 5 and recently lost the world championship final against Anand, couldn’t come to an agreement with the organizers.

Not satisfied with nice score in Olympiad, Siberia

WOERDEN. During the Chess Olympiad in Siberia, Erwin l’Ami performed well: his score of 4.5 points out of 8 games was a fraction higher than his rating would have predicted. He was not satisfied though, because his only loss was in the crucial 8 round. Untill that moment The Netherlands was still in the race for the first spots, but the 3-1 loss against Israel ended that. “Very unpleasant since it sent us off the right path” recollects the chess player from Woerden with guilt.

That doesn’t change the fact that Erwin l’Ami, in Siberia, was one of the most stable players in the team, together with countryman Anish Giri. His participation in the prestigious Corus-tournament in Wijk aan Zee had by then - in big secrecy - been confirmed.

In the coming months tournaments in Hoogeveen and Wolvega are scheduled for the chess player from Woerden. Besides that, he planned training sessions with national coach Vladimir Chuchelov, the Bulgarian Ivan Cheparinov and Daniel Stellwagen.


Source: AD-newspaper, October 13th, 2010