Tom Schotte and Wout Schotte victorious in Ursel Othello Open
12 January 2025The main event gathered 14 players (10 advanced, 4 beginners), and welcomed back Jozef Dumoulin after an on-the-board inactivity of 17 years. For the fifth time in six Ursel events, Tom Schotte finished on top. He managed to win his 7 games, but had two close encounters against Ralph Reijnders and Jozef Dumoulin. It is his 49th tournament victory in Belgian A-tournaments. Runner-up was Dimitri Vaes with 5/7. The last time he finished second was in the 2016 Ghent Easter tournament. Tom and Dimitri did not play during the tournament. Third place was for Dutch visitor Andre Kortenlever, who played well above his rating and won 5 games. Nadja De Moor finished 5th (was seeded 10th) as best woman, while Daphne De Moor was best beginner with a neat 3.5/7 (defeating one and drawing against one advanced player).
In the promising players event with 10 players there was a clean sweep for Schotte-De Moor, with Wout as undefeated champion, ahead of his brother Sander and Stan Roos (son of Nadja). Must said that Bart Verstuyft also remained undefeated, but had to leave after 3 rounds. We'll never know how this would have ended. Notable come-back for Tony Claeys (first games since 2019) and a debute for Pepijn Verstuyft, who nearly had his first win (30-34 loss) in one of his games.