3rd World School Championships - Round 6

By Went Math Hut*

General waffle, remember to mention the pool-side café and the beach bar, make out it is really tough being here etc etc.  

Segue into a bit about the skeletons and ancient Greek mosaic floor – make it sound like an educational trip for the kids. Kick Egg’s photo of the wild boar?

Everyone walks to Kallithea for lunch in blinding heat and scorching sunshine (what’s wrong with pool-side café etc) > Mad dogs and englishmen / use last year’s photo of sleeping dog: “well, you said let it lie…”

One short para before chess bit. Lawyers theme, bottom of the sea joke? X-ref to disrepute charges? Find an anagram for plagiarism (e.g. “copying”; “re-using”; “borrowing” etc).

Remember to insert pictures of team photo and coaching (or keep for Rd 7 report?) Chase coaches for game of the round. Suntan lotion / floppy hat.

Idea: use txt msg from UK as a News Flash? “A quick search suggests Callum has the record! One with 7 and one with 6 both thought 2 b fakes. 2 games with 5 for real – Belov v Prohorov 1991 and Mackic v Maksimenko 1994.”

Now the Chess bit:

The Players hit the boards on time and Round 6 starts just two announcements past 17:00. The AHOs avoid catching Mad’s eye, in case he demands a tennis opponent. Looney Toot and yours truly retire to the nearby skimming surface, thereby to refine further the Olympic ruleset. Returning to the venue after 90 minutes, they have missed some action already! Charlie has over-compensated for his 9½ hour marathon yesterday by winning in 45 minutes, and ending up with more time on his clock than he started out with! Patrick has won, and George has won with a “Queen Sack” (see Game of the Round below). A great start of England.

There is then a gap before the next trio of results: Daniel and Saravanan both win to stay neck-a-neck on 4 points out of 6 (that’s not going to help when it comes to the pairings for the next round…). Then Lateefah returns disappointed to have lost to her very strong opponent: she felt she was in a stronger position hence the disappointment. A great 2 nd quarter for England though.

Another gap. Nerves jangle. Loose change jingles. Wine is tippled and beer gulped. Then another trio of results! Ed VR is delighted with a draw, having felt he was in a losing position! Samuel returns having secured a draw on board 3 in the U13s. Then comes Jessica, draw specialist, with a third draw! “No!” I hear you cry! And you are right, she actually has a win!! England running total is now 7 out of 9, a great set of results so far …

That leaves just Joseph, Callum and David at the boards. And as if I am psychic, that is the order in which they come out. Joseph loses and Callum wins. Tonight it is David that has the marathon match, eventually securing a draw. David is somewhat disappointed, but settles down to watch Man U vs AC Milan anyway.

So a good day for results – we maintain a strong position overall, 6 points above the 50% mark - but a bad day for pairings (see below). Overall the England party are happy, but there are at least four Players who are rather wishing things had turned out differently …

The results of Round 6 are as follows:

The draw for Round 7:

The bad news referred to above. The draw for Round 7 has just come out, and there are 2 (two) Eng v Eng pairings…

The Players’ results to date:

And now I can reveal that there is a semi-team event: countries can submit groups of players who are competing on aggregate scores. Amongst the Players, all of last year’s 3 rd-place England St George team are playing again, so this team is re-formed. The rest of the Players take on the mantle of Team England with 2 from last year’s six playing again. Scoring: the best 5 total scores will be aggregated and used to place the teams against each other and all the other teams. The England “teams” and their overall scores at the end of Round 6 are therefore:

Highlight of Round 6 is George’s game in the U15s:

O'Toole, G - Bouras, P
World Schools Chess Championships, U15B, Kallithea, Greece, 2 nd May 2007
[Annotated by Neil McDonald]

1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.d4 cxd4 5.cxd4 e6 6.Nc3 Nxc3 7.bxc3 Qc7 8.Bb2!? George's pet system in this version of the 2.c3 Sicilian. The bishop on b2 is blocked in by a row of pawns on c3, d4, and e5, but on the other hand that makes White's strategy simple: advance c4, d5 and mate the black king! 8...d6 9.Nf3 Nd7 10.exd6 Bxd6 11.Bd3 b6 12.0–0 Bb7 13.c4 Black's develop ment is immaculate, but where is his king going to live? If 13...0–0–0 14.a4 and 15.a5 is an automatic attack. The king fares no better in the game on the kingside. 13...0–0 14.d5! A centre breakthrough in the style of the young Kasparov. See for example Kasparov-Andersson, Tilburg 1981, and Kasparov-Portisch, Niksic 1983. 14...exd5? Very risky as the two white bishops are now raking the black kingside. Essential was [14...e5 blocking the action of the bishop on b2.] 15.Ng5! [It was tempting to play a so-called Greek Gift Sacrifice against a Greek opponent but in fact 15.Bxh7+ Kxh7 16.Ng5+ is only unclear after 16...Kg6] 15...g6? [Here 15...h6! was a tough nut to crack. George intended 16.Nh7 attacking the rook and threatening 17.Qg4 etc.]

16.Qh5!! A pretty queen sacrifice. 16...Bxh2+ [Or 16...gxh5 17.Bxh7#] 17.Kh1 Not sidetracked by the win of a piece. There is no way to ward off mate as[17.Kh1 Nf6 18.Bxf6 changes nothing.] 1–0

And now, featuring a new introductory brand:

******** Great Chess Moments from History ********

And finally, Kids Korner!

Q: How many people at a chess tournament does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Nine:

one to complain about the lighting levels,
one to say he thinks the lighting is OK,
one to suggest someone calls the arbiter,
one to go and call the arbiter,
one to reminisce about lighting levels at the 1947 tournament at Hastings,
one to complain about the disturbance the others are causing,
both arbiters, and
one to say he thought the lighting was better before they changed the bulb.

Facts For the Memory

The Letter “K”

Every world chess championship from 1894 until 2000 featured a player who had the letter k in their last name (Lasker, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Spassky, Korchnoi, Karpov, Kasparov, Khalifman, Kramnik). In 2000, the sequence was broken when Anand played Shirov for the world championship. It continued back in 2002 to the present (Kramnik, Kasimdzhanov).