ГоБиблиотека: Турниры/Европа/Фудзицу/1996

IV European Fujitsu Finals 1996

EGCC, Amstelveen, 14-15.12.1996

Country Str. 1st round Quarter-finals Semi-finals Final Winner Netherland 7d Guo Juan Guo Czech 5d Radek Nechanicky W+10.5 Guo Netherland 6d Mark Boon Boon W+5.5 Germany 6d Sorin Gherman B+7.5 Pietsch Germany 5d Christoph Gerlach Gerlach B+19.5 Czech 5d Vladimir Danek W+7.5 Pietsch Russia 5d Andrei Gomenyuk Pietsch W+R Germany 7d Hans Pietsch W+R van Zeijst Romania 7d Catalin Taranu Taranu B+5.5 Ukranie 6d Dmitriy Bogatskii W+R Taranu Russia 6d Victor Bogdanov Heister W+R Luxemburg 6d Laurent Heister W+4.5 van Zeijst Russia 6d Alexei Lazarev Colmez B+T France 5d Pierre Colmez W+R van Zeijst Germany 6d Egbert Rittner van Zeijst B+R Netherland 7d Rob van Zeijst W+R

This year four of the participants were of professional strength. The well-known Fujitsu competitors Rob van Zeijst -still living in Tokyo- and Guo Juan were both present. So were Hans Pietsch and Catalin Taranu. With the help of the EGF they both came over from Japan. Hans Pietsch became professional at the Nihon Ki-in in Tokyo (two months after the tournament) and Catalin Taranu became professional after winning the professional qualifying tournament at the Nagoya branch of the Nihon Ki-in. This was made officially in January 1997.

At the Fujitsu Finals Dmitri Bogatskii is a talented newcomer. He is just 16 years old. Aside from him, the players in the finals are the ones who have been dominating the European tournaments for years.Among the strongest were Gherman from Romania, Gerlach from Germany, Heiser from Luxembourg and Alexei Lazarev from Russia. Lazarev has been very successful before the introduction of the new system with the Grand Prix Finals in 1993. In 1991 as well as 1992 he won the Fujitsu Grand Prix Tournament cycle. This year he unexpectedly lost in the first round against Pierre Colmez.

The four 'semi-professionals' all reached the semi-finals. However not without difficulties as can be seen from the game-records. In the semi-finals Hans Pietsch surprised everyone except maybe himself. Guo Juan was unable to keep up with him. Pietsch was the first to reach the final. For a good part of the other semi-final most spectators (but not Rob van Zeijst) thought the other finalist would be Catalin Taranu. However Rob van Zeijst managed to pull through and reach his fourth successive final.

In the final Rob van Zeijst beat Hans Pietsch by 5.5 points. So after beating Schlemper in '93 and losing to Guo in '94 and '95, Van Zeijst is again the winner. He will have another try at reaching the second round in this years Fujitsu Cup. Till now, the European representative has always had little success in the Fujitsu Cup. Not one of them even reached the second round. Small wonder since the Cup is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world. However things may change for the better. Rob van Zeijst last year beat strong opponents in the preliminaries of two separate Korean professonial tournaments, Samsung and Tongyang.