Scottish Championship 2015 - Day 9 - A Perfect Ending

Blog is a day late and I make no apologies for it.  By the time I got all the Scottish and FIDE grading done and the pgn files compiled along with news articles for the front page of the Chess Scotland website, it was well past midnight and typing the blog was the last thing on my mind!

Now where were we yesterday?  Ah yes, Neil was on the cusp of getting one of these.

Yep not only did he get the draw he needed, he went one further and won his game which made him..

SCOTTISH CHESS CHAMPION, 2015!!!!


To be honest, Neil has had to do it the hard way, facing 5 GMs and an IM (and scoring +3 =1 -1 v the GMs!!!).  He had a really tough draw.  Had we had more 2200 - 2300 players playing, there is no doubt this would have been a GM norm and deservedly so.  Fantastic performance which brings Neil up to around the 2343 mark.  Getting closer to that magical 2400 and IM title (this is his third and final norm).  Congratulations Neil, a very worthy winner!

Neil and Keti's game was one of the last to finish and you could cut the atmosphere in the venue with a knife, there were so many people watching the game, going upstairs to get a better view (and generally getting in our way :D).  I swear at one point, I could see lightning flashing between Alex's fingertips...  Was really good to see the interest in the game and the poor guys on board 1 must have wondered what they were doing wrong as no one was paying them any attention!

The overall winner of the Open was Oleg Korneev (who incidentally was beaten by Neil in round 2)

Joint second was Erik Van den Doel,  Jacob Aagaard, Neil Berry & Pall Thorarinsson

The Under 2200 Grading Prize was won by half the field, so winning their bus fare home, we have Marcel Schroer, Andrew Green, Alan M Brown, Hamish Olsen, Graeme Kafka, Jim Stevenson, Raj Bhopal, Walter Burnett & Delcan Shafi.  Wide angled lens at the ready...

U1900 was a bit better and was shared by Donald Heron & David Begg

U1700 was shared by Win Veelenturf & Jamie Underwood

U1500 to the delight of the treasurer was a single winner, Stuart McKinney

Now to the Scottish Titles

Neil Berry (did I mention this before?) was the Scottish Champion

Senior Champion was Craig Pritchett

Senior Over 50 was shared by Colin McNab and Roddy Grant

Best Junior was Declan Shafi

Top Girl was Sarah Smith

Trying to persuade someone to stay for prizegiving can be a little tricky when you can't explain why.  Thankfully our Player of the year listened and decided to stay so we were able to award the player of the year to....


Andrew Burnett

And that concludes the voting from the Scottish Jury!

Well thats it over for this year.  Next year we hope to be in Sunny Glasgow with the championship falling on Noisy Saturday.  Must remember to order in my ear plugs now!

Hope you all enjoyed the tournament. I'll leave you with a  quote from Monty Pythons Flying Circus... "If you've enjoyed it just half as much as we enjoyed doing it, then we've enjoyed it twice as much as you!"

Scottish Championship 2015 - Day 8 - GO NEIL GO!!!!

End of day 8 and there is an sense of excitement in the air.  Finally it has happened, we have a Scottish Player on the cusp of an IM norm.

Neil just requires a draw tomorrow and he secures an IM norm.  This will be his third and final norm (we are checking to find out what his peak rating is so we know if he is successful if he will gain the IM title).

This is everything we have been trying to do and if Neil is successful, Alex and I are going to be over the moon :D

The Scottish is basically down to 5 people with Neil and Keti facing each other, Roddy floating up to play the Top seed and Jacob and Craig facing Jan and Ivan.  It is theoretically possible for someone from the score group below to win but it is going to take a strange set of results.

It really looks like it will be tie break to decide.  Neither Alex nor I will be looking at it until tomorrow.

The Championship is wide open, With the top 2 boards drawing, suddenly it is theirs to lose.  A draw on the top board with a win for Roddy and we will have joint winners.

Pia, thank you, thank you thank you!  I asked if you could do something with Alex on it and you did not disappoint.  The annual winding up of Alex can continue :D

Superb!

Short blog tonight as I have loads to do.  Tomorrows will be a bumper one with all the winners (and hopefully a norm!)

Scottish Championships 2015 - Day 7 - My Life is now Complete

17th July, 2015  will be a day I will remember forever.  This is my 8th Scottish Championship as an arbiter and for the first time ever since I became an arbiter 11 or 12 years ago,  I have finally won a pairing argument with Alex!  I can now retire happily as an arbiter as there is nothing else left for me to do!

Happy days :D   I can dine out on that forever!

The boards decided to misbehave today.  It started fine but after a power surge, I lost all of the wireless boards.  Did the usual, recycled the power and rebooted the boards.  2 failed to come on :(.  20 minutes later and I was down to 1 not working but try as I might, it would not come on.

Bizarrely the board started working again, however it was from a later part of the game which made no sense at all!  As the boards are battery powered, it should have retained the memory.  It was like the board had lost power.

Typically the game was the last to finish so I had to wait until I got the scoresheets so I could enter the moves up to when the board came back and the rest would fall in automatically.  Finally the mystery was solved.  The players told me that the connection to the board had come out during play and that they had connected it when they noticed!!

Of course it begs the question, WHODUNNIT!!!

I was grateful to them for plugging the board back in, it saved me putting 60 moves in!

After todays play, unless the top 3 boards all draw tomorrow, it is likely that the overall winner will come from there.  6 different countries between them (and not one Scot!)

The top 2 seeds face off on board 1 and are a half point ahead of boards 2 and 3

 1 v 2, it is surprising how often that doesn't happen in a tournament!

There is a whole host of players vying for the Scottish Crown and some multiple winners amongst them. There are 10 players on 5 points, sitting a point behind the leaders.  All are either Scots or qualify to be Scottish Champion!  Looks like a tiebreak will be needed again to determine the winner.  Then again, there are 2 rounds to go so who knows what will happen!

Who will it be?  As my son would say, "Daddy, there are 2 sleeps to go!" Facing off we have..

Pleasingly, there are 3 untitled players in the group.  How many will still be there tomorrow?


Finally for the evening, I like to take photos at unusual angles.  here are a couple I took today (for a bonus, name the 2 players, one of whom is now known as Mr Pinkie!).  Enjoy

Scottish Championships 2015 - Day 6 T'be sure T'be sure...

Day 6 is upon us.  We are in area of the tournament where things get interesting.  Who is going to win it and be Scottish Champion?  Ask me one on the composition of Charon.

As it stands now at the end of Day 6, we have 6 players on 5 points and 6 on 4.5.  We don't seem to have anyone who actually wants to win!.

Game of the day had to be the titanic battle between GM Colin McNab and perpetual Scottish Champion, IM Roddy McKay

 It was a very good game and there were many comments on the sites that are broadcasting the games about the chess.  2 fine Gentlemen indeed!

My other game of the day was nearly a tale of woe (cue Hovis theme music).

Carl Milton was playing Duncan Walker when the following position was reached

White (Carl) has clearly checkmated black.  Ah but says Duncan, I don't believe you, lets see you do that again..  The game continued with 39..Kg6 40.Nxh6 Kxh6.  Eventually on move 46 black sees the error of his ways and resigns in the following position

First Person to get 2 Checkmates in the same game at the Scottish!

Of course, Alex and I were wondering,  Do we give Carl 1 point or 2???

Scottish Championships 2015 - Day 5 - Hitting the Wall

Every year without fail, it happens.  Every year I know it is going to happen but it doesn't matter what I do, it still happens.  Round 5.  There is something mythical about round 5, it signifies the half way point.  It is also the point were we hit the wall!  I was so tired yesterday, I could have cried (having been travelling for the best part of 12 weeks does not help!).  Last night, I had one of my usual bouts of insomnia.  Strangely I am refreshed today despite having little to no sleep!

To give you and idea of both my (and probably Alex's day).  We get up fairly early.  Check emails and mobiles in case someone has called to see if the need an emergency bye.  I will leave the house about 8:50, with Karen and take the kids down to my parents.  Karen then heads to work and I head to Hamilton to meet Alex.  10:45 ish we will meet and head through here and get the hall set up ready for play (getting the live boards up, with the usual sacrifice to Cassia, putting out the place cards, putting on and checking the clocks, printing draw and dealing with player questions).  Play starts at 1.  I am then running around taking photos, updating the website with results, doing the grading and the other 1,000,000 or so jobs we do when play has started.  Alex is the same.  We have Dave putting the games in at the moment so we can get the PGN up.  Play finishes say 7pm (it varies as we have an incremental time control).  We then check the results against the result slips, Alex by now has them on the pairing cards and it is time for our evening battle with the computer over the draw :D

Once that is done, we upload the draw, check the live boards are switched off and we have everything with us and head home.  Alex drops me off just after 8 at one side of EK (It is easier as I can get a bus there) and I am in the house for 8:30.  Next job is to eat and spend 30 minutes with my wife, son & daughter who have not seen me all day (Alex, you have an advantage there!).  Get Euan to bed (he likes his daddy putting him to bed :) ) and then I can begin the evening work (Alex is doing something similar as we have split tasks).  I update the live boards with the next days play, combine the pgn files, update the website and if I am not totally out on my feet, write the days blogs!.  Once that is done, I venture to my bed and pray I am not going to have another night of insomnia.  Normally this is about 11:30.  Rinse and repeat for 9 days!

I have probably missed out a few steps :)  Why do we do it??  Love of chess, love of the Scottish Championships and at the end of it, a feeling of accomplishment.  If you see us looking tired, the chances are we probably are!!!  If you have asked me to do something and I haven't, the chances are I have been concentrating on what I am doing and it has slipped my mind!

I have to pay credit to Lara Barnes, David Clayton, Simon Gillam, Donald Wilson and of course Big Boss Ken Stewart for their invaluable help.  Without them being here and assisting we simply would not be able to do everything we are doing, but there is a serious point to this part and it is kind of what I am getting to.  We really do need people to help us going forward.  It does not have to be arbiting, it can be other roles such as games inputting.  If someone wants to learn how to do the live boards, it would help me as I could concentrate on other things.  These are simple examples.  If we follow the pattern, next year we will be back in Glasgow (with the lovely bands disturbing play...).  If you can give time to assist us, please do!!

Ok serious bit over and time for the sarcasm (you didn't think you would get away with it did you!).  It is getting close at the top and we are at the stage where every point counts.  There was a game on board 1 that even I could analyse, but when I read FM Alan Tate's analysis of the game, I am going to pinch it and put it here (well they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!)

"The Ruy Lopez (/rʊ.ɪ ˈloʊpɛz/; Spanish pronunciation: [ˈruj ˈlopeθ/ˈlopes]), also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5
The Ruy Lopez is named after 16th-century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura."

Yep that is pretty accurate and spot on Alan!  I can find no argument against that.  I'll leave it to the noticeboard to continue the debate on this one.  It is a little juicy!

Of course this means that the race for the title has closed right up and we have 15 players in total within a point of the loading three.  Looking at our norm chasers, Neil, Calum, Clement and Andrew are all sitting handy.  Andy Burnett needs some really good results but is in with a shout (as an aside.  Andy was kind enough to explain to me why he resigned yesterday, I though there was a way out of the position but he was good enough to take the time to explain to me why my idea didn't work!).

One of the outstanding performances so far has to come from Steven McHarg

Steven is sitting on 50% (2.5/5) which does not sound that good until you consider he is actually one of the lowest graded players.  His TPR (tournament performance rating) is 1962 at the moment.  His actual grade is 1476!  Regardless of how his tournament finishes, well done Steven!

Steven was very unlucky in his game yesterday, narrowly missing a mate in 2 or 3 (depending what Alan did) and drawing in the end

Here is the position, Alan has just played Be2??

Rh3 immediately wins the game as if gxh3, Qg8 mate.  If Alan plays Kxh3 then Qh1+, Kg3 and Qh4 mate!  How close to another 400 point scalp (and a similar graded player in the following round)

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you are Alan!) Steven didn't see it and played Qg1.  Them knights are really tricky!! 

Scottish Championships 2015 - Day 4 - Wow!, Just WOW!!!

Last job of the evening, write the blog for the day.  I was sent something for the website that simply blew me away.  Let me introduce Pia van Rossum and her magical abilities with IPad drawing.

When Pia finishes her games, she can be seen sitting upstairs drawing on her IPad. She has been kind enough to send some on to us that we have put on the website.  I have small versions here, the larger ones are on the website.

What an incredible talent!!  Pia if you are reading this, I have a challenge for you.  Do one of Alex (we always try to do something to embarrass Alex at some point!)

Speaking of embarrassing Alex, remember this gem from the Scottish in 2009???

Ah the memories...

Not a lot has been happening on the playing side.  I was in a bad mood after the SGM and thankfully everyone noticed and stayed clear until I had taken it out on the live boards.  Strangely they decided to behave today. they must have known :D  Not like me to be like that and I can assure you I am back to my usual manic self tonight!

On the playing side we have an overall leader, Eric van den Doel is a solitary 1/2 point ahead of the chasing pack.  Looking at the leading challengers for the Scottish title.  Jacob, Colin and Andrew Green are sitting in joint second with a further 10 Scots sitting a mere half point behind them.  It is going to get interesting going into the second half.

There has been some superb results by the juniors playing.  Ben Volland winning against a 1950 and the Smith sisters have been playing well.  Sarah drew with someone double her grade.

Poor Declan Shafi had to play his coach.  There is nothing worse than playing your coach as they know your game backwards!

On the whole, I have been really impressed with our juniors so far.  Some excellent performances that they can be proud of.  This is going to give them a really good boost going into the new season and it is times like this I am grateful that my tournament playing days are behind me.

Been a really good natured tournament so far, as always the players are making it a pleasure to be involved with the running of the tournament.  Without them and their support, we would not have a tournament!

Scottish Championships 2015 - Day 3 - Where's the Blog??

I got to the venue this morning (day 4) and was asked, "Where is the blog, we missed it..."  I can only apologise, someone decided to have an SGM this morning, and my time was taken up with that!

So what happened on Day 3?  Well the arbiter team expanded with the Boss Man, IA Ken Stewart arriving.  We will have to behave ourselves from now on!

I'm watching you HOWIE!!!

 (actually Ken is brilliant to work with, as is Simon.  It gives Alex and I a chance to get caught up with everything else!)

Playing hall is pretty spectacular, we are in a sunken room and the surroundings are pleasing to the eye.  You get a good view from upstairs on the action below

View from the top

Overall not too bad at all.  Alex and I continue our woes with the computer.  It just does not seem to like removing players for byes and when we come to check it, they are still in.  I have had serious words with it!

On the playing front, we are down to just 3 people leading.  Erik Van den Dole, Ivan Fargo  Jacob Aagaard!  Who will be leading by the end of tomorrow!