The Online Scottish 2020 Part 1

It is really odd.  Scottish without having to get through the marches to actually get to the venue.  What a pleasant change.

Last few weeks have been hard.  Since 3rd July I have had 1 night where I have not been arbiting or working on congresses.  Between the SCT events, Primary Individual, 4NCL Congress and the 4 event Scottish it has been a busy time.  I have a week off after this and then the Glorney starts.

We are 4/7 of the way through the Scottish and have a couple of surprise leaders.  Isaac Browning and Nihad Abdullazada are currently the joint leaders with FM Alan Tate and CM Andrew Green just behind them.

It does not come as a great surprise for me to see Nihad there.  I remember him as a junior and he had a lot of promise. 

There was an amazing position on Board 2 tonight.  Isaac and Craig were playing and Craig had Isaac on toast when in what can only be described as a desperation move, Issac played Rxf7?!

At first glace this is a meaningless move but the follow-up is really clever.  Craig played Qe1+ letting Isaac reply Rf1+! winning the queen.

The simple Rxf7 was all that was needed and white could comfortably resign.

Out of interest, I wondered what the computer would make of that move.  Would it see it a good trap to try in a desperate position.  The answer is a simple no, the silicon monster says that the correct move is Rc1 and evaluates it 5 points stronger.

Who says computers know what they are doing :D

Both U1500 and U1800 reach their conclusions tomorrow and it is the start of the weekender.

I have really enjoyed it so far.  It has been quite busy.  I finish work at 4:30 and relax for an hour.  Then I check everyone's Lichess handle in case there has been anything picked up from the Anti Cheating Screen from Lichess and publish the live games master for the evening (I can't put the links in until the games start).  I open as many tabs as I have games +1 so I can monitor the team chat channel and set each one to focus on the white player.  Communicate with the players until it is time to start then don my headphones so I can listen for the clicks of each move.  Once the games have started, I reload to get the actual game link and paste it into the master on the website and upload so people can follow.  I monitor whatsapp, my mail and the team channel in case a player has to get a hold of me, create the PGN files so I can paste in when a game finishes and monitor the games.  As each game finishes I put the result into Swiss Manager and upload and paste the game into the pgn. 

This continues until a section is finished when reopen the boards in order and check I have the right results in Swiss Manager.  Then I upload the tournament to Chess-Results so the standings are shown.  This continues until all the games end at 10pm.   I then spend the next hour doing visual checks on the games looking for indications of computer use, compile the master pgn file for a scan which takes me to about 11pm.  Finally I run the draw for the next day, check and publish it and relax.

At the midway and end point of the tournament, I send the PGN files off to Ken to have them screened.

It is certainly more demanding than OTB arbiting!!  Normally by 11pm I am out on my feet. 

Why do I do this?  Oddly I really enjoy it! 

Who said it was going to be quiet?

We have been in lockdown for what feels like 100 years.  I yearn to be out in the hills again in the solitude.   Oh hang on.  I don't want to be in the house but I want to be up in the hills with the family.  Hmm, cabin fever has struck!

I remember the old rhyme 30 days hath September.  The modern day has 30 days in March 60 in April, 100 in May and 200 in June!

I'm sure someone said it was going to be quiet during the lockdown and it would be a good chance for us to recharge our batteries.   I seem to have not got that memo as I am more in demand than every before (not complaining as I really enjoy it)!!

So this weekend was the inaugural Chess Scotland Online Allegro and Lightning Championships.  Karen and I decided that we wanted to bring tournament offering prizes back and with the help of the Scottish Chess Tour with the different experiments with formats, we decided on what was the easiest to manage.

Published the entry form and waited for the flood of entries.  Fast forward to 1 week before and I am bricking myself as I have 5 entries in the Allegro and 2 in the Lightning!  I came across an ad to take part in a virtual orchestra on Sunday and mentioned it to Karen.  She told me not to be daft as Chess Players leave it to the last minute before entering.  Dubiously I listened to her but resolved I would go for it on Friday night if we did not have the entries.

As is usual in life when dealing with my wife, it is safer to listen and just do it.  She is normally right (even when she is wrong!).  I was looking for 20 for the allegro and 10 for the lightning and we surpassed that.

Shut down my machine on Friday night, ready for the Allegro at 10:30 am on Saturday (for some reason there seems to be a bit of titillation in England that we refer to Rapidplay as Allegro  Not sure why as the tournaments have been referred to as Allegros since before I got involved!).  Noticed there was a Windows update waiting for me so ran it.  Woke up Saturday morning and turned on my machine.  Nothing.  No booting to Windows.  The update had failed and had jammed the boot sequence up.  I have 45 minutes to the start of play and my laptop is down. 

I have to confess to using some words that were dirtier than lavvie paper!  I managed to get it going again by booting to safe mode and removing the offending update.  30 minutes to go.  Lets get Swiss Manager up and running.  Everything is fine, chatting to the players in the chatroom and it is time to publish the round 1 draw.  Virus checker decided that javaflo is a virus.  *sigh*  The laptop nearly ended up in the garden.

Players were brilliant. we had some good banter in the chat room with questions being asked like where the canteen was.  I really had a good time running it.  I had whatsapp running in the background so players had that, internal messaging email or chatroom if they needed to get a hold of me.  Round 1 and 4 I had clubmates playing the top seed GM Matthew Turner.  There was a flurry of messages in the club whatsapp group as everyone wanted the links to watch.

Sunday and it was the day of the lightning.  This time the computer did not decide to misbehave and again things went smoothly, well almost smoothly.  After round 5 I announced a 10 minute toilet break.  It was that or it was going to get messy.  It appears that not everyone was paying attention to the chat room as I got a couple of bemused emails asking when the next round started!

Again it was a day of banter and good natured chess. This was a different arbiter experience concentrating on 13 Windows while my son tried to give me a Fathers day present.  Online arbiting is a lot of fun and as hard as offline.  Feels weird not having to look for illegal moves or irregularities!

Have to feel sorry for the player in time trouble on Saturday who faced this position and played Kc4??

On a final note, we received news last night that our good friend Andrew Burnett had had a heart attack and was in hospital.  He appears to be doing well.  We all wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him fit and healthy back at the board.