Repeating History

The recently completed Batavia GM tournament in Amsterdam tried a new approach to scoring. Before the main game in each round the layers played a blitz match, which was then used to allocate points in case the main game was drawn. The winner of the main game scored 2 points, but in the case of a draw, the winner of the blitz match scored 1 point, but the loser only received 0.5 of a point. 
Whether it changed how the tournament was played I'm not sure, but from the score table, it looked as though there were a lot of decisive games. The added bonus was that there were a number of entertaining blitz games as well. The most noticeable was John Van Der Wiel getting mated on move 15, in a game that has been played a couple of times previously.


Van Der Wiel,John - Warmerdam,Max [C45]
Batavia Blitz, 03.2019