Scottish Chess Championship Day 1 - Where is the Blog???

So I am sitting quite happily in the hall, putting in results for the Blitz at the same time as registering players for the Open when suddenly I start getting mails.  "Are you running a blog this year?" they ask.  I didn't realise people actually read my utter ramblings so I suppose I had better or I am for it!

You know it is going to be one of those special tournaments when you are the Chief Arbiter for one of the events and one of the organisers ask why we didn't mention it was under the Sofia rules (for the non chess players who read this, the players are not allowed to ask for a draw before move 30).  As it was the APA and round 1 had already been played and no one had bothered to tell us it was under the Sofia Rules so we can't inform the players.....

Deep joy :D

One of the many jobs Alex and I do include entering the games into Chessbase so we can publish the PGN.  You can normally tell when we are doing it as either our faces are screwed up as we are trying to read the handwriting or we have looks of disbelief (or laughter) on our faces when we see some of the amazing blunders.  We also see some weird positions.  Here is one from today (10 moves in).

White did in fact win this game in the end but that is some pawn formation!  I will try to pick up some good ones over the week for you.

One of the many funnies that happened today was when a player got so excited that he was not going to lose to a 2000+ player, he forgot to keep score.  That one is going in the best of our big book of excuses!

Yesterday saw just 1 decisive result in the APA, today it was the complete opposite with just 1 draw.  The GMs and IM are really going for it!

This morning we held the inaugural Blitz Championship.  It is fair to say given the levels of interest, that this is very likely to be continued in future years.  The rapidplay has a good entry as well so it is also likely to be continued.

After 9 rounds of very fast chess, a winner emerged.  It should be said that the winner stepped off of the train in Dundee at 6am this morning and was playing this afternoon, so I tip my hat to you GM Keith Arkell with an excellent score of 8/9 and outright winner

A very creditable second place went to FM Charlie Storey (also know as The Sniper)

Well done to both of you!

Well that's all for today.  Tomorrow sees the start of the U1850 & U1850 seniors.  Having watched one of the Seniors play today and give his opponent (graded 600 points above him) a world of pain, it is going to be some contest!