Johan (White) tries to save the gammon against Eric (Black). How to play the double 3?
Eleven players attended the 6th round of the Club Championship, including Christiane who joined for the first time. She had a remarkably good start, surprising Alain (5:1) and Zsolt (5:0) with her creative checker play an bold cube action in the first and second rounds. She was stopped by Eric who went on to win the tournament.
Eric had skipped the May tournament but came back at the top of his form. In addition to Christiane, he defeated three top 10 players from the Belgian ranking, Ronny, Johan and Leonidas and reached his first proper tournament win in Leuven. Congratulations!
This is a position from his match against Johan. Eric, playing back, was on his way to win the match with a gammon. However, with a last-minute shot, Johan had a gleam of hope to save the gammon and stay in the match. According to computer analysis, the best move for white in this position is not the hitting (17/5*) but safetying the first blot (15/3) which gives a 37% chance to save the gammon. In case of hitting, this chance is only 33%.
With 3 wins, Alain jumped to the top of the Championship ranking. He played the most entertaining match of the evening with Henri in the third round. Henri was in extreme time pressure, playing the last two games with only 1 second of bank time. Remarkably, he did not run out of time, but still, the match was won by Alain.
At half-time, the standing is incredibly tight. Alain can feel the breath of Eric, Guy and Zsolt in his neck and Johan is also within sight. Those not going on holiday this summer may have a chance to gain some advantage. Johan was desperately looking for an organiser for the fourth Friday of July; finally Marc will step in as tournament director.
— ZT