3rd World School Championships - Round 9

By Tout Finis

It's a lovely day here and the pigeons are settling in the outfield [STOP RIGHT THERE! It's the last round, the end of the tournament, caput, finito. Just tell us what happened - ed.]

Ok, it is simple. Our best day's total points in the tournament, saved for the last day, with 9 out of 12! {71. d8Q} Only one loss, four draws and 7 wins makes it a celebratory event. Overall, 1½ points more in total than achieved at the same tournament last year! And that is not the end of it: Lateefah takes 3 rd place in the U15 Girls section and Samuel takes 3 rd place in the U13 Open, whilst George takes 3 rd equal U14 in the U15 Open section. {72. b8Q} So celebrations all round, and a genuine reason to attend the closing ceremony! Only this year Dan S won't be there to fall asleep, but he clearly has a young follower ...

We gather in the playing hall for the closing ceremony, it is lively, raucous and somewhat irrelevant [irreverent? - ed.] until the first dignitary steps to the microphone. {74. c8Q} Thereafter it is lively, raucous and somewhat irrelevant. But each country in attendance is waiting to cheer on their winners with whoops and yells, cat calls and wolf whistles.

Whilst the volume of the cheers is somewhat less than for any Greek players who have prizes (home crowd of course) the cheer that greets Lateefah and Samuel as they are called up to the stage to receive their trophies drowns out my thoughts! {77. b8Q} It is a wonderful achievement for them, and something they will remember for along time!

(Lateefah is the one on the left, Samuel is the one on the right, you work out which instruction goes with which photo!)

Finally: the heartfelt thanks of all the Players and AHOs to Partridge Tunneller for yet again jointly leading a well-organised, memorable and successful England party to an international event; {82. g8Q} and to the coaches for hurting when their Players did not quite get the results they should have (and for taking loads of stick from AHOs who should know better).

And of course I cannot leave you without one last message of thanks to our sponsors, Winton Capital Management. Apparently they were warned about my sort of drivel before signing up, but there's no telling some people (thank goodness!). {83. f8Q} And actually, I think they've got off rather lightly, don't you?

The results of Round 9 are as follows:

The Players' final list of results:

The England 'teams' were not in the running for prizes this year, with 5 (five) Russian teams (amongst a few others) ending up ahead of us! {88. f8Q}.

The final results and standings for the teams at the end of the tournament:

And now, featuring a brand new introduction:

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

And finally, Kids Korner!

Chess is a black and white jungle. (Garry Kasparov)

But now, a bumper GUESS WHO, all of whom are linked in some way or another with this England party: (roll over the photos to reveal a current photo)

And for a great way to improve your tactics, how about the British Chess Solving Championship 2007-2008? Starts about now ...

Facts For the Memory

And a bumper list of useful info to bid you farewell!

Best Game

The 16th game of the second Karpov-Kasparov World Championship Match in Moscow 1985 was chosen by an international jury of Grandmasters as the best game ever played in the past 30 years.

Karpov-Kasparov, Moscow (16) 1985

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3 a6 8.Na3 d5 9.cxd5 exd5 10.exd5 Nb4 11.Be2 Bc5 12.O-O O-O 13.Bf3 Bf5 14.Bg5 Re8 15.Qd2 b5 16.Rad1 Nd3 17.Nab1 h6 18.Bh4 b4 19.Na4 Bd6 20.Bg3 Rc8 21.b3 g5 22.Bxd6 Qxd6 23.g3 Nd7 24.Bg2 Qf6 25.a3 a5 26.axb4 axb4 27.Qa2 Bg6 28.d6 g4 29.Qd2 Kg7 30.f3 Qxd6 31.fxg4 Qd4+ 32.Kh1 Nf6 33.Rf4 Ne4 34.Qxd3 Nf2+ 35.Rxf2 Bxd3 36.Rfd2 Qe3 37.Rxd3 Rc1! 38.Nb2 Qf2 39.Nd2 Rxd1+ 40.Nxd1 Re1+ and White resigned 0-1

Rules

In 1290 Lombard lawyers formulated a rule to govern chess play when players from different countries met. The rule stated: "The game of chess ought to observe the custom of the place in which it is played." Prior to 1853 the rules were to draw for colour as well as the first move at the start of the game. Thereafter, the players had the same colour pieces throughout the session. {94. h8Q} One could have the Black pieces and move first. Black was considered to be the lucky chess colour. In 1853 George Walker suggested that the players who draw White should have the first move in order to compensate. The first international codification of rules occurred in 1929.

Staunton chessmen

The only type of chess set allowed in FIDE events. In the 1978 World Championship match in Baguio, none of the chess sets shown to Karpov and Korchnoi just before the match were of the Staunton pattern. {95. Kg5#} Someone had to drive to Manila to find a Staunton chess set, which arrived just 15 minutes before the clocks were due to be started.