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!
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