Scottish Championships 2016 - Days 7 and 8 - The day after the night before

As predicted, tiredness and other duties got between me and writing a blog last night.  I got in after play and promptly fell asleep where I was sitting!

First order of business, we have some winners to celebrate.

The winner of the 7 Day tournament was George Murphy with an excellent 6.5/7

2nd was James Watson on 6/7

The U1500 winners were David Watson, Bernard Cassidy and Iain Hope on 3.5/7

I had a bit of a scare yesterday about 20 minutes before play started.  Could not get the large tv to work.  After a quick check I noticed that windows 10 had downloaded a new update

*sigh*

Got the games working in time.

Last night saw the start of the weekender.  As a wee bonus we played the top 14 matches on the live boards with the same setup we use for the Open, TV and all.  Quite a few came up to me yesterday and today to tell me that they loved it and would love to do it again!  More than happy to oblige if I get the chance.

You can tell it has been a long tournament and tiredness is starting to kick in with the players as well.  This has lead to some rather "interesting" positions including this unfortunate miniature

The game ended 18. Nfg5 Nxd4 19. Rxf8+ Rxf8 20. Bxh7+ Kh8 21. Qh5 Rf2+ 22. Bxf2 Bxg5 23. Nxg5.  Happens to the best of us unfortunately.

Today was the penultimate day of the Championships.  Not the best time for my tablet to bluescreen in the middle of play meaning we lost the game between Douglas Bryson and Daniel Gormally!!

With the Daniel and Matthew winning, we now have 2 outright leaders on 6.5 and the chasing pack a mere half point behind.

Chasing the Scottish Title, we have Alan and Keti on 6 points Dougie Bryson, Alan Grant, Colin McNab, Stephen Mannion and Declan Shafi on 5.5.  It will be one of those 8 who will be crowned Scottish Champion!

It has been quite a remarkable turn around for young Declan, it does not seem that long ago (2013) that we were presenting him the Primary Individual championship trophy and here he is on the last day with a chance of becoming Scottish Champion.

I think it is fair to say I have been really impressed with all of our Juniors this year in the Scottish.  Declan with a 2200 performace, Lukah with a 2050, Rachel with an 1850, Jake 1850 to name but a few.  For those going on to the Glorney / Faber please take your form with you and bring home the cups!  If anything exemplifies why I like this format for the Scottish I will always say, Neil getting his norm last year and the performance of our Juniors this year.  That makes it worth the effort to try and find sponsorship for the event!!  It really is just a matter of time now before one of our current crop makes the breakthrough and wins it.  Who will it be?  I would not bet against any of those playing this year!!!