Russian Team beaten in final


The Battle of the Giants 2009 has come to a conclusion. The tournament of Giant-teams of 16 youth players (8 to 20 years of age) from France, Germany, England, Russia and the Netherlands was held last weekend at the Tulip Inn Hotel in Leiderdorp. SV Leiderdorp was able, mostly due to the financial help of it’s main sponsor Gamesfactory online, to organize this unique tournament for the 4th time. Reigning champions Sussex Junior Chess retained their title by defeating the St. Petersburg team who claimed second prize during their debut performance.

During the preliminaries on Saturday, Sussex Junior Chess, VAS Amsterdam, St. Petersburg and SV Leiderdorp qualified for the final show-down on sunday. Le Perchay (France), Stadauswahl Dortmund, Zükertort Amstelveen en De Schaakmaat from Apeldoorn had to be content with a place in the consolation group.
The results of the matches played on Saturday carried over to the matches played on Sunday thus the English and the Russian team started the final round with 2 match points since they had beaten VAS and Leiderdorp respectively. The Russians proved they were clearly better than then team from Amsterdam during their first Sunday game. The English had to play their first Sunday game against Leiderdorp who were determined to get revenge for the big loss they suffered in the final 2 years ago. The match turned into a real thriller where Leiderdorp ruled the top boards but where the English were scoring heavily with their younger players. In the end, the very last of the 16 matches was to be the decider. Unfortunately for Leiderdorp this one went towards Sussex and so the final round would become a true final between the Russian and the English team.

The only real excitement in this match was to be found in the earlier stages. At one point the English team was leading with only 4 points to 3. At that point, however, the English managed to take the full point in 3 consecutive games and managed to create a lead they would maintain during the rest of the match. With a 10-6 victory over the Russians and not having conceded a single match point in the entire tournament, they were crowned “King of the Giants” for the second time in succession. The crown, the trophies, the medals and the first prize of €400,- were presented by none other than the world’s youngest Grand Master and reigning Dutch champion Anish Giri (15!). He presented the reward ceremony together with Mr. Vermeend, director of Gamesfactory Online. The Russian team was congratulated with their second place in their native language because Anish was born in St. Petersburg! Host Leiderdorp managed to secure third place overall by beating VAS 9 to 7. Dortmund became the winners of the consolation final by beating direct competitor De Schaakmaat and thus became the proud winners of a big pie!

Completely in line with the idea behind the Battle there was a lot of chess and games outside of the main tournament. There was a lot of attention for a new type of chess named “Raindropchess”, for “Chess against the Bear” and especially for a simultaneous exhibition given by the oldest chess player in the world, Sinterklaas! Saturday night SV Leiderdorp organized an alternative chess program where “Gongchess” in particular made for some extremely hilarious situations. During this game the players had to perform specific tasks on the board every time a cymbal rang. These tasks could dramatically change the position on the chess board on a whim.
During the 2 days of the tournament the Tulip Inn Hotel supplied the players and their consorts with a lunch and a dinner. The foreign guests could spend the night at the hotel. The efforts of the Tulip Inn were greatly appreciated by all the participants.
SV Leiderdorp can look back upon a fantastic tournament and would like to thank everybody who added to it’s success.