Tilburg Chess Tournament - 1992

1992

In 1992 the tournament was for the first time held in the knockout format and comprised three days per round. Game one on day one, game two on day two (both at classic time limits). Day three was a rest day, but for those tied 1-1 it was the day to play two more tie-break games (each with rapid time limit) and in a few cases, another two. The format was described by some commentators as very brutal. Anyone getting off to a slow start would be eliminated and sent home in just two or three days, such as happened to the entire Hungarian squad of Lajos Portisch, Gyula Sax, Zoltán Ribli, József Pintér and Peter Leko. Those who did not win cleanly in the initial two games of each round found fatigue a great problem, due to having to give up their rest days. The benefit over the old double round-robin format, was that it opened up the potential for an unexpected winner and this made it exciting for the spectators. The traditional format favours those highly graded players who win year after year by agreeing quick draws against their closest rivals and defeating the rest.

The 1992 edition had 111 participants, 94 in round one, with the 47 winners then being joined by 17 seeded players given a bye to round two. Round two therefore comprised 64 players, round three 32 and round four 16. Below are the results from round four onwards. At the time, this was the largest prize fund of any traditional tournament. Adams won 100,000 Dutch guilders, the overall fund was 500,000 dg. The seeded players were given very generous conditions of a guaranteed 10,000 guilders to ensure their attendance.