Scottish Championships 2013 - Days 8 and 9. We have a winner and what was I thinking!!!

"To err is human, to really screw it up takes a computer"

I am sitting here, the day after the tournament totally exhausted.  I have to say it was completely worth it.  Lets review Days 8 and 9 and what will probably be the worst day of my Arbiting career!

Day 8 dawned with an air of excitement.  So many people still in contention to be the Champion, so much chess!  The weekend tournament was well underway, everything was working as it should do.  Absolutely perfect.

Dick approached me early on and asked if I could somehow get a picture of our player of the year, David Oswald, without him realizing why.  I am a really bad liar, people see right through me so I had to think of a way to do it that was not really a lie.  After a bit of thinking I decided to ask him to pose for the magazine, I just did not tell him why only I had been asked to get a picture for the magazine

Totally unsuspecting!!!

We worked out that there was a couple of players still with norm chances and hopes were high that one of them could come through.  The temperature was really nice, lower than the previous days and actually manageable.  Some excellent chess was played and at the end of the day, we had 5 likely candidates for the championship.  But which one would win!!!

Alex's new T-Shirt!

Roddy, Alan, Colin, Andrew and Clement were all chasing the title.  We would have to wait until the Sunday to find out who it would be!


Day 9, I am travelling to the venue taking a look at the tie breaks and to my utter horror I noticed an error in the draw!   Words cannot describe how I felt yesterday at the event knowing I had made a really bad blunder.  What I couldn't understand is how the computer did not pick up on it.  I asked Alex and I now understand why.

I just want to make one thing clear, that is the blunder was mine.  Alex very kindly apologized to everyone at the start of the round out our behalf, but the mistake was mine and mine alone!  Even today it is still bothering me.

I asked a few players what they thought of what I had done, well their reaction speaks volumes...

Gutted!

Well I am not finishing on a downer!  We have some winners to celebrate!!!

In 1988, A certain IM Roddy McKay picked up his 7th Scottish title.  I bet he never in his  wildest dreams imagined he would win again 15 years later!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the 2013 Scottish Champion, for the 8th time!

IM Roddy McKay

 The winners of the Tournament!

 The 10 way tie for one of the Grading Prizes!

Who's round is it?

 Winners of the Minor

 Runner up in the Open

 Grading prize from the Open

Well thats it for this year.  Time for a couple of well deserved days off.  Well done to Roddy and all the winners and well done to Alex for organizing another superb tournament.

Scottish Championships 2013 - Day 7 - The Longest Day & We have a Winner!

"The thing that's always worried me about being one of the few is the way we keep on getting fewer."

Today is the longest day.  Surprising, given that we are going to be here until nearly 11pm tonight, Alex and I are in good spirits and there is some serious banter taking place.  To anyone listening, you would think we are abusing each other.  Not Alex and me :D

This is it, this is the day we dread, this is the longest day of the tournament.  5 1/2 punishing hours in the afternoon then a nice serene 3 hours in the evening, all the setting up etc etc etc.  Is it worth it?? Hell yes!

Today also sees the conclusion of the Minor and combined oldies, I mean Seniors (thankfully I am at least 13 years away from playing in those) and U1750.  Both contests have been fought out with some astonishing chess, astonishing in both ways as we are finding out when we enter the game.  Maybe it is the heat!

Speaking of the heat.  It is the worst day so far, it is like a furnace and I am already on my third t-shirt.  Who would have thought that a high roof would mean raised temperatures?  On that basis, Westminster should be melting given the hot air.

I believe we may have caused the first case of Fratricide caused by a chess game.  One player was sitting when the delightful chimes of their mobile rang out throughout the hall.  It was their brother asking how they were getting on in the tournament.  Would loved to have been a fly on the wall for that one!!

Today means we have winners and we can crown the new Scottish Champions for 2013.

Starting with the Minor.  We had a guest winning it, so winning but not being Scottish Champion, Christopher Scott, all the way from Australia!

All this way and they give me a lousy cheque!

In second place, and by virtue of qualifying, may I introduce to you, the new Scottish Minor Champion, Adam Walkowiak from Edinburgh

On to the Seniors / U1750 We had joint winner, given one was a senior and the other not, it made some sort of sense to make it one gets each prize.  So winning the Seniors we have Peter Clarke of Polytechnic..

That's my Trophy, no it's mine...

I jest, winning the Seniors we have John McIntyre of Phones and winning the U1750 it is Peter!

Before I close off for the day, I want to share my little excursion with you.  I didn't realize quite how tired I was last night and accidentally got on the wrong bus.  Nice wee walk from Parkhead to Rutherglen at midnight to help me wind down!

Finally as two tournaments finish, two are started.  The weekend kicked off today in style, here are a few shots of the upstairs greenhouse

 

Scottish Championships 2013 - Day 6 - TV Success

We did it, by George we did it.  After 6 days of  sweat, blood and tears, we finally got the 4 large screen TV's to work and display the games in progress.  I can now go home safe in the knowledge that I have completed my task...

And finally...

Day 6 seemed to be the hottest day so far.  It was not down to the temperature, more down to the humidity.  I suspect there have been some corking blinders made purely down to the heat.

Game of the day had to be the board 4 clash between young Andrew McClement and GM Imre Hera.  The game ended up with a position where both players had a forced mate on the board.  Andrew was mate in 1 and Imre mate in 2.  Unfortunately it was Imre's move which gave him the win in a thoroughly entertaining game.

 Today was a really strange day, both Alex and I were really tired.  I have never seen the two of us make so many mistakes in admin.  Thankfully, mainly down to Alex's insistence, we are using the computer to check our draws so we can instantly spot when we do something odd (like writing the score the wrong way around!)

Time for food, sleep and an early night as tomorrow is the Longest Day!!

Scottish Championships 2013 Days 4 and 5 - TV or not TV, that is the question...

Murphy's law (or the fourth law of thermodynamics) states that: "If anything can go wrong, it will."

Mr Murphy has been the ever present here at Helensburgh.  We have 4 massive plasma televisions for displaying the games on the top four boards.  So far we have had 1 of them working once!

Thanks Mr Murphy!  All I can say, in my very best Latin is "Illegitimi non carborundum!!!"

We actually have a Mr Murphy playing here..

George Murphy

I am pleased to report after the Hades like temperatures of Day 4.  Day 5 is actually quite nice.  We no longer have players spontaneously combusting at the board.  I was speaking to the Janitor this morning and he was telling me that they were worried about the amount of water that was appearing on the Mens toilet floor.  It was with relief that they discovered it was from the players splashing their faces to keep cool!  I'm not saying it was hot but I left an apple on my desk yesterday and came back to a baked apple this morning!

Jimmy Doyle

I was very lucky to get a lift home last night with these two fine gentlemen

Was much appreciated as it meant I was back nice and early for my youngest 3rd birthday.  I have started to teach him some chess.  Nothing too hard, just the name of the pieces.  Tried the usual "is this a prawn?  No Daddy thats a pawn.  Is this a horsie?  Don't be silly Daddy, thats a knight!".  Thats my boy :D

Scottish Championships 2013 - Days 1 to 3. A welcome Visitor

Good afternoon and welcome to this years edition of my Scottish Championship Blog.

Due to a Murphy load of problems this year, we are a wee bit behind and I am now on the catch up and finally getting round to writing the blog (albeit on the train home!)

The first three days have certainly been a technical challenge.  Alex gave us the target of broadcasting 25 boards.  Well we have gone one better and we are broadcasting 26!

As it stands at the moment we have no one on 3 out of 3 and the field is bunching up on 2.5.  I feel sorry for David Oswald as he is the only non titled player in the leading bunch which means they will be out to get them!

 

I could not believe it today.  Sitting there on board 4 playing a Grandmaster was my friend and clubmate Alan Jelfs!!!  Great achievement to be so high up at the moment in that field and I hope he continues to have an excellent tournament.

Our norm chasers are doing fairly well, most sitting on 2/3 and if they continue in this form then we may see that elusive IM norm for one of them.  I really have lost count the number of times they have just missed out!

Yesterday we had a very welcome visitor.  Many at the tournament will have noticed we are a man down.  Not just a normal man, but Donald Wilson.  Donald decided to step back from chess for a while back in February and we were delighted to see him pop in and say hi!

Donald in usual position!

Tournament is shaping up really nicely and apart from the Centre Court esq heat the conditions are not too bad at all  I have heard lots of good things from the players about Helensburgh, it is a nice place!

Murphy has made several spectacular entrances this tournament and none were so brilliant as today.  We arrived early to try out an experimental setup to get the TV's going.  Got everything working and just had enough time to set up for play when the main computer bluescreened.  I hate Bill Gates.  Guess what I am going to be spending several hours tomorrow fixing...

I can't finish this blog without mentioning Andy Murray

In my limited years as an arbiter, I can never remember so many games stopping to watch a game of tennis.  I know of two players who lost as they were more interested in the match.  When it got to the final game, Alex and I considered stopping the clocks as there was only two people sitting at the board, everyone else was crowded around Alex's computer!

Well done Andy!  Just remember that it has now been 78 years since an Englishman won at Wimbledon...

Ich komme wieder!