After being absent for about a year, Vas asked me to do the preparations for the 10th ICT Leiden tournament. I gladly accepted, realising that catching up would be rather difficult: it is impossible to polish up your book in a month or 2 when it has been in the dustbin for so many months. So I took a practical approach: take some old idea's, prepare some new ones, but do not try to catch up. Be glad with 8-15 book moves and strive for a complicated, dynamical position, with preferably as many pieces on the board as possible.

I am sure Vas will do a round up for the tournament, so I'll limit myself to the opening point of view:

Round 1: The Baron - Rybka 0:1
Quite surprisingly The Baron opened 1.e4, which it had never done before against any program that used my book. The reply probably also was  a surprise: the French defence. The Baron chose the solid Tarrasch, in which I came up with 3... Be7 and a rather murky line. Rybka quickly equalised and when The Baron refused to exchange queens, she used some nice tactics to win an exchange. Due to the many pawn weaknesses Rybka duly converted the advantage into a win.

Round 2: Rybka - Komodo 1:0
Komodo played a rare line in the Pirc - Ufimzev defence and Rybka quickly grasped the initiative, sacrificing pawns for a swift development. Komodo never got a moment to relax and with some nice blows Rybka won material and the game.

Round 3: Spark - Rybka 0:1
I was a bit surprised to see the O'Kelly Sicilian appearing, which turned out to be a serious problem in my main book. More about that later. Of course white is a bit better in this line and Spark played well to keep some initiative. After a slight mistake Rybka managed to equalize, but Spark refused to trade rooks with a simple draw. Then it went from bad to worse, with Spark playing several sub optimal moves. Rybka outplayed her opponent nicely, ending the first day at 3/3.

Round 4: Rybka - Hiarcs 1:0
Always interesting from a book point of view is the game vs Hiarcs and also this time we were not disappointed. Hiarcs used an offbeat line to combat the 6.h3 Najdorf, but Rybka reacted very strongly by sacrificing a pawn for some serious white square domination. Quietly moving her q-side pawns Rybka got a clear advantage and when the black b-pawn fell, it was the beginning of the end. The strong white b7 pawn decided the game. I liked this game a lot.

Round 5: Shredder - Rybka 0:1
Another surprise awaited me when Shredder opened 1.d4, which was not expected. The book I used for this game had the Dutch Leningrad as a response, one of the offbeat lines I prepared for this tournament. Of course I never thought I'd use it against Shredder :-). White had some edge after the opening, but once again cluster power managed to equalize with some strong moves. For some reason Shredder refused several drawing lines and opted for a dubious looking ending with a weak passed pawn on d6. Another mistake and Rybka nicely rounded up the pawn, converting the endgame into another win.

Round 6: Rybka - Sjeng 0:1
Being tired of so many Ruy's I came up with another surprise for this game, the Scotch. Alas, Sjeng was well prepared and white didn't have anything after the opening. Sjeng could have equalised easily, but preferred to keep the game going. Slowly Rybka was putting her pieces in good positions, showing something like +0.30, when suddenly disaster kicked in. An incorrect exchange sacrifice was played after only a 7 ply search, immediately putting Rybka in a lost position. I was terribly upset and left the tournament hall immediately. My apologies to Gian-Carlo for this behaviour and not congratulate Sjeng on this win, which I'd like to correct here on this forum. After day 2 Rybka was still in the lead with 5/6, Sjeng being 0.5 behind.

Round 7: Junior - Rybka 0:1
To my astonishment I saw Rybka playing the French against Junior, which was totally unintended. First I had the idea Hans had selected the wrong book, but the problem was elsewhere: before round 1 Hans had chosen the wrong book option (I don't know exactly which one) after which a merging of books started. He quickly stopped the process, but apparently some damage was done: the priorities of the book I used against Junior were damaged. Alas, I never would imagine that the book choice actually worked very well. Rybka had simple equality after leaving book and when Junior sacrificed a pawn and refused to go for equality, Rybka quickly took over the game and gave Junior no chance to recover.

Round 8: Rybka - Pandix 1:0
The problem with the book priorities could not be solved before the next round. Against Pandix this led to another Scotch game, which I was not intending. Again, however, the opening went well. Up to 16.h4 it was all book and Rybka quickly got a huge advantage after inaccurate moves by Pandix. A nice win.

Round 9: The King - Rybka 0:1
Finally I managed to catch Hans on the phone trying to do some damage control. Indeed many priorities in the book I wanted to use were altered, so I ordered Hans to change them. Being at home, though, I couldn't check everything and then you know it, you get punished at some point. Another unintended line appeared on the board, leading to a dead equal position after 14 moves. Two times lucky, third time... not. Very frustrating. Luckily The King completely misplayed the position and 10 moves later Rybka was already in control. It didn't take long for Rybka to cash in and hence winning the 10th Leiden ICT with a 8/9 score.

Thanks to everybody for the nice tournament and of course I am happy I can celebrate my return with a Rybka win!

Special thanks to Vas for the great new cluster version; to Lukas for providing this awesome machine; to Hans for operating Rybka this weekend; to Jiri for some nice idea's I could use.

Last but not least: I hope Larry Kaufman will soon recover and can return home.

Congrats!

A strong case of "I'm so superior that I can win the event after a depth 7 blunder and running around with a messed up book" :)