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Scots derby tomorrow.
You go all that way...
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Arkell - Pritchett is another pairing we could have done without at this stage...
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The match are in play now if anyone wants to follow, live boards link is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.fpx.pt/provas/escc2014/escc50/ronda3/index.htm">http://www.fpx.pt/provas/escc2014/escc5 ... /index.htm</a><!-- m -->
What I could not understand is why Craig's 2100+ opponent yesterday (Rnd2) sacrificed his bishop on move 10 with Bxf2. Please enlighten me if you see logic to that move, I didn't see any myself.
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After 10...Bxf2 11.Kxf2 c6 Black always gets his piece back because if 12.Ba4 b5 forking.
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Craig's opponent has had a bit of nightmare (rd6). All over in 12 moves.
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A disappointing last few rounds for the Scots...
Craig finished on 6/9 with Phil on 4/9 and Douglas on 3.5.
Better news for the English and Dutch...
Keith Arkell won the over-50s with 7/9.
A big shock in the over-65s with 15th seed Nico Schoulten (NED, 2179) scoring 7.5/9 ahead of all the titled players including 3 Experienced GMs.
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Afraid I only got 5.5/9 ... was winning easily in last round but badly mishandled clock in rapidplay finish and mutual bail-out with a draw (offered by my opponent with both down to under 2 mins in a position that had got somewhat out of control) was not a bad option ... but I would have gambled if the title had been at stake.
Finished 8th and got medal from surprise prize-giver Garry Kasparov - see photos at the website / Portuguese chess facebook link.
Keith Arkell played best overall and was deserved winner in 50+. I played him and lost in round 3 but should really have held the draw fairly easily towards the end in a very long and hard-fought game.
This, however, wasn't really (in my view) in any sense "a pairing we could have done without at that [early] stage" as Alastair suggests above. If you're serious about trying to win these (or indeed any) events, you must be up for any pairing. I wanted to win or at least draw that game and would have had to play Keith at some time anyway. It was tough for us both!
Many thanks to the Portuguese chess federation who did a great job!
PS: my 12 move win (in c 20 mins) follows a known "blunder" (...Ng4 in a position in which it just doesn't work). To my surprise I found that even a number of 2300+ players have lost this way ... but the real red faces belong to the one or two 2300+ players who then missed the win of the piece and returned by transposition to a known mainline battle!!
