Scottish Championships Day 7 - Have you ever had that strange sensation called De Ja Vu?

Donald and I did the draw last night, as luck would have it, the draw we were all anticipating finally came out.  Keti V Jonathan.  Wife V Husband.  GM, Olympiad Gold Medal Winner and former Scottish Champion v Strong player and former Scottish Champion. 

There was a buzz about the Scottish Chess community.  A few wags had posted on the notice board

"Hope we don't see this advert in the local rag this weekend...

For Sale

Double bed (surplus to requirements)
Will swop for two single beds or large one man tent

Contact J.Grant (Edinburgh)"  

This was history in the making.  As far as we could tell, never before had a husband and wife played, essentially for the Scottish Title.  I contacted Chessbase to put them on alert, IM Douglas Bryson contacted a few newspaper he had contacts with.  This was history in the making.  It was a good selling point for the tournament and a possible hook we could use to get some sponsorship.

We all forgot one important thing, and in that respect it is a lessons learnt.  Never ever ever expect chess players to do what you expect!  11 1/2 moves later and a draw is agreed.  Nothing wrong with that, it is within the rules.  Strangely enough I feel down.  I was really looking forward to the watching that game.  They are 2 players who play exciting chess and normally if their games are on I will watch them.

I'm grateful that the reporters treated chess with its usual contempt.  Could have been a disaster had they appeared!  Mind you, all we would have had to do is give them a few mobile phones to keep them amused...

I'm afraid my motivation is down after that game.  Serves me right for trying to hype it up.  It will never stop me trying to market chess in Scotland, just looking around the room here tells me we have enough dedicated (or is is committed) players in Scotland.  We just need someone to believe in us and throw us some money (or I win the Lottery!)

The Seniors and the U1500 (that's the Under fifteen hundred for Alex, who was about to announce it was the U150!) finish today.  It has been a close fought competition

Starting with the Seniors,  Donald Heron leads the way on 4.5, with last years joint champion James Kleboe 1/2 point behind.  Janic Konnarski and Ian Mason are on 3.5

Donald is playing Janic and James is playing Ian.  Any one of the 4 can win here (although for Ian and Janic, they can only be joint champions)

In the U1500 Mike Mitchell can only be caught if he loses.  Any other results and he wins.  He is guaranteed minimum of Joint U1500 champion!

If he does slip up, both Ian Hope and Bernard Cassidy can catch him if they win.

Will do a further blog tonight with the start of the weekender and the winners from the Senior and U1500