Theo Hommeles at the Canadian Open

Back in the 1990s in BDG World I published a number of Blackmar-Diemers played by the Dutch FM Theo Hommeles. Last year I posted a couple of those old games here. I think it’s time to reprint a few more.

Hommeles is in the chess news these days due to a great performance in the just-concluded Canadian Open in Edmonton. The Open was a nine-round Swiss with very strong IM and GM participation (Alexei Shirov and Michael Adams among others).

As Peter Doggers wrote in Chess Vibes, “Hommeles can be satisfied with a a fine tournament in which he defeated IM Samsonkin (2612) and GM Ni Hua (2702), to find himself playing for first place against Mark Bluvshtein in the last round.” Unfortunately, a bit like Tom Watson on the links of the British Open on the same Sunday, he came up short at the end. GM Bluvshtein won the game and the tournament on tiebreaks.

Chess Vibes has a final report on the tournament, which includes a picture of Hommeles at the board in his game with Ni Hua.

The Ni Hua game itself, with commentary by GM Alexander Shabalov is here.

And here are Hommeles’ two BDGs I posted last year. I will pull several more together and post them later this week.