The 2006 Essent Hoogoveen tournament has concluded! In the final round, Judit Polgar defeated ex-World Champion Veselin Topalov yet again, and Shakhryar Mamedyarov defeated the hapless Ivan Sokolov for the second time to tie for first place in the four-player supertournament.Mamedyarov won first place on tiebreaks, due to his scoring 1.5-0.5 against Polgar in their two games.
In recent years organizers (most notably with the MTel Masters supertournament held in Sofia, Bulgria the past two years) have tried to cut down the number of "grandmaster draws" by enforcing strict rules, such as those stating that draw offers can only be made through an aribiter. The reasoning is that fans want to see decisive games and not draws among top players.
In the Essent Tournament, however, 12 games were played, and only 2 of them were drawn!! This is unheard-of for such a strong tournament. Much of this undoubtedly had to do with who was invited to play. Other organizers can learn from the example of the Essent tournament by inviting dynamic players, or a field that has a greater separation in strength level. Ivan Sokolov has been a top player for two decades, but he was certainly outclassed in this event, scoring only 0.5 out of 6.
Final Standings
Shakhryar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) 4.5/6
Judit Polgar (Hungary) 4.5/6
Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) 2.5/6
Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands) 0.5/6
Click here to see ChessBase.com's full coverage of the event.
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