NH Chess Tournament update: Four white pawns on four centre squares!

Playing hall of the NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam.

Hi Everybody,

The Rising Stars have gone on to take a full four-point lead by the end of the ninth and the penultimate round. That means the Experienced team needs a win on every single board in the tenth round only to draw level! With one round to go the Rising Stars are leading 24½-20½ in the overall standings

The ninth round ended in a 2½-2½ tie.

David Howell got the better of Peter Heine Nielsen while Boris Gelfand beat Fabiano Caruana.

The NH Chess Tournament is taking place from August 12-22 in hotel Krasnapolsky, in the heart of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The team that collects most points wins the tournament. The best player of the ‘Rising Stars’ team will be invited to the 20th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in March 2011 in Nice, provided he or she scores over 50% in the NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam.

Have you ever seen a game with four White pawns occupying the four centre square? Yes, the four centre squares of e4, e5, d4 and d5? Go 'wow' on this unique position in the Howell-Nielsen game!

Chess Vibes writes, "In case you wonder, in recorded chess history this pawn formation had only been seen fifteen times before. [We counted only 30 in a database of 4,307,440 games."

You can run the moves in our pgnplayer or watch in flash below. You can check up more statistics and great videos at the official website here.

PGN: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. O-O Ne7 6. Nxe5 Qd4 7. Qh5 g68. Qg5 Bg7 9. Nd3 f5 10. e5 c5 11. b3 b612. Bb2 Qg4 13. Qe3 Nd5 14. Qe1 f4 15. f3 Qg5 16. c4 Bf5 17. Nxc5 bxc5 18. cxd5 Bd3 19. Nc3 O-O 20. Ne4 Qf5 21. Nxc5 Bxf1 22. Kxf1 Rad8 23. Qe4 Rfe8 24. d4 Qxe4 25. fxe4 1-0

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com