Chess Scotland
Juniors
designed by kids,
for kids!
29th
International Open – ARCO, Italy
20th- 28th
October 2007
By Andrew McClement
Photos
Arco is
situated in Northern Italy and is in the Tyrol
region. It has strong historic links
with Austria
so if you have a smattering of German you can get by here as many of the
signs and information sheets are in German as well as Italian and some
colourful English.
The town
itself is nestled in the hills to the north of Lake
Garda and is very picturesque.
It was a medieval fortress town so there is a huge castle to
explore. We are staying in an apartment 5 mins walk away from the playing hall which is in an old
and very grand building which used to be a casino for the super rich. If you like eating pasta, pizza and ice
cream then this is definitely the place for you.
I arrived
at the tournament armed with my new and first FIDE grade. At 1594 it is probably the lowest FIDE
grade held by a Scot ever so it was a sharp contrast to Jacob Aagaard, also playing in the same tournament, who is at
the opposite end of the spectrum! In
some ways it is disappointing that it was my worst two tournaments (Under 12
Euro Youth in Montenegro
and the British Major Open at Great Yarmouth)
which contributed to this artificially low FIDE grade I now have. Ironically, it was Montenegro where I ‘crossed the
Rubicon’ in chess terms. It was there
I realised that in order to compete against these ‘pesky’ Eastern Europeans then
I would have to get seriously better.
That of course does not come just by breathing in air – it requires
expertise, experience at playing at a higher level, and of course ingredient X - a lot of individual effort!
In Arco
they used the Italian Variante system for pairing so
the top players don’t play amongst themselves for the first few rounds. They are in the same pool as everyone
else. So Jacob is seeded No.1 and I am
strategically placed at No. 104, so he is safe for the time being.
My first
round opponent was a CM and for the rest of the tournament all my opponents
were titled. I drew that first game
and in the post match analysis my ‘chess crimes’ were exposed. I didn’t spot that forced win in four
moves. Anyway, Jacob and the ‘Australian’
Alex Wohl (he was born in Yugoslavia) offered to go over my
games every day. It was an incredible
experience watching these two ravenous beasts of the jungle pouring over my
games. Ferreting out a .001 advantage
here and spotting some more tasty morsels over there. I was just a scrawny alley cat by
comparison but the debates were electric, heated at times and invariably there
was enough laughter to lift the roof off.
There is so much more to this game of chess and I just felt I was
learning all the time!
A
victory was soon in sight in the second round in 16 moves. By Round 5, I was attracting a lot of
interest so there was always rugby scrum around my table which meant the top
boards could get on with their games without distraction. The round 5 game was a brutal affair. I had a great position early on but I was
in time trouble with 2 minutes left on the clock at move 19 and 22 moves to
make the first time control. Often I
was down to the last 3 seconds but once I almost lost it as I became absorbed
in an idea and out of the corner of my eye I saw the clock reach 2
seconds. It was obviously keeping the
crowd interested! Anyway, we got into
an end game that was clearly won for my opponent but I did have some
prospects with a passed pawn. Soon it
was K & Q against K, R and 4 pawns.
Sure K & Q against K & R is a technical win for K & Q,
though difficult. Anyway, I saw my
chance and forced a draw by repetition – maybe there was a win……. We were almost the last players to finish
after almost six hours of graft.
Round 6
was a good game and I was a pawn up for most of the time. Yet again it was a player that Jacob had
already played which was my prize for always being in the top 3rd
of the draw. It was my first loss here
and I didn’t feel too bad about it. Round
7, I was back to winning ways once again.
It was fairly evenly balanced after I sacked the exchange but I always
fancy my chances in an end game and pounced just at the right time.
In Round
8 disaster struck.
Something happened that was much, much worse than losing five matches
on the trot at the British. My
opponent fell ill and didn’t show up.
Bang went an opportunity to claw back some of those FIDE points – so I
was pretty fed up with that.
Round 9
did reward me with another tough opponent – the highest graded yet. It was another good game but he wasn’t
falling for any of my tricks so it ground its way to a draw after four hours.
After
all the games had finished there was a concert laid on which was a local
Italian choir singing Gospel Music and it was extremely good. The prize giving followed shortly
afterwards. I ended up getting the
Under 1800 Grading Prize (90 Euro’s) and an
invitation by the Italian Chess Federation to take part in the Euro Youth
tournament in Italy
in 2009.
It was
certainly my best ever recorded performance from a tournament at 2174 with
little gusts towards 2200 during it. I
learnt a lot from it and I really appreciated Jacob’s involvement here. Alex was an added bonus with his Kitchen Sink Theory – apparently after
picking it up all I need to do is drop it and I don’t have to throw it very
far either. Jacob and Alex both tied in
first place with 7/9 but were 1st & 3rd after tie
break, meanwhile I was just over their shoulders with 5.5/9 and 26th
after tie break.
So what’s
next? Catching up with the school work
after disappearing for a week. I am
lucky to go to a school which regularly takes part in national and
international competitions so our Rector is incredibly flexible. He does lay down two golden rules – we do
the best we can when we are there and secondly, we make up any lost ground
quickly afterwards. It is quite fair
really so I think I did OK in Arco so now it is catch up time. I don’t want to incur a veto for later
on!!! Thankfully the catching up won’t
take long and then I can get back to doing some more ‘grunt’ in time for the
next Congress!!!
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