Scottish Championship Day 3 - The Call of the Champions

It was when I was speaking with my parents last night that I realised that quite a few non-chess players read my blog and not only that,  they learn about the people I am describing.  Well I have a stunner for you.  I made a mistake on Day 1.  Well I did and I didn't.  Jacob Aagaard won the Scottish Championships, but I didn't realise that at the time he was not Scottish so although he won the tournament, he was not crowned Scottish Champion.

Confused?  Yea I was as well.

I was a wee bit disappointed that GM John Shaw was not playing today as I would have had to pair Andrew Green against him.  His round 1 games was against IM Andrew Greet and his second against the aforementioned Jacob.  All we needed was John and we could have billed it as Andrew versus Quality Chess!

 As with last year, I will focus on things that pique my interest each day.  This lunchtime I set the question to all and sundry, as to who has won the most championships of all the players in the field this week.  As a clue, there are 6 people who are former winners, 4 of whom have won it more than once!  The answer is below.

IM Andrew Greet 2010 winner

FM Alan Tate 2008 Winner

The two gentlemen above have won it once each.  Lets move on to the double winners

GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant

IM Douglas Bryson

Dougie won it in 1996 and defended it in 1997!  Keti is the current champion and also won it in 2003.  What is really interesting is that both times Keti has won, it was played in Edinburgh!

Moving on to a 4 time winner, and predicted by most to be the person with the most wins, I give you one of the foremost chess puzzle solving experts on the planet...

GM Colin McNab

Colin won the championships in 1983, then again in 1991, 1993 and 1995.  Seems to like odd years!!

And now to the final person, the mystery will be revealed.  Who is it that has won the most titles of all the players playing this week?  This person first won in 1971, the year of my birth and if I recall correctly, at the age of 19, he followed it up with wins in 1974, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1985 and 1988.  He featured on the cover of the Scottish Chess Magazine a few months ago when he turned 60.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the one and only......

IM Roddy McKay

I was asked today if I was psychic?  Let me take you back to yesterdays comments "Watching the games today, I learnt something vital for playing against a GM.  Don't give them a piece for nothing (I'll let you look at the games tomorrow to work out which one I am talking about!)"  Of course I was referring to one of the games that had taken place in round 2 (the comment about tomorrow was about when the games would be up on the web).  I was taken by surprise when exactly that happened on one of the show boards today.  Woops!

 Finally for today, my all time hated event happened.  A phone went off.  Coming up in the rule revisions for the laws of chess is a proposal allowing for the penalty to be determined by each tournament.

I will be more than happy if this comes in and we can get back to winning at the board and giving a punitive punishment for a first offence.

Well that's all for this evening, see you all online or at the venue tomorrow!