Scottish Chess Championships – Round 5

The crowds line up on Edinburgh’s historic High Street awaiting entry to the Championships viewing gallery.

A degree of normality returned to the Championships today after the large number of upsets in the last few rounds.  Top board saw Slovakian GM Jan Markos end the spectacular run of the Icelandic FM Gudmundur Kjartansson.  The Icelandic player likes to attack and in the following position unleashed the unexpected 24…Ng4+

>

After the further moves 25. hxg4 Qh4+ 26. Bh3 Bf2! 27. Rxf2 Qxf2+ 28. Bg2 Qxf4+ a position with non-standard material balance arose, one that is very difficult to evaluate (at least for me!).  However, White managed to open the position very quickly and the bishops became dominant (1-0).

The young Scottish player Jamie Hookham played one of the games of the day yesterday and was rewarded with a pairing against GM Panchanathan.  He held his own for most of the session, eventually reaching the following endgame…

But, alas, instead of the correct 26…Bf5, Jamie stumbled with 26…Bxe3? and after 27. Rxc7 Rxc7 28. Rd8+ Kh7 White can then capture the g6 bishop with check, winning a piece.

There were a number of all Scottish clashes today.  A crazy position arose on board 8 FM CSM Thomson – FM G. Morrison.

Black to play here and, yes, he is an entire rook up, but would you want to have to defend this position in time trouble? (“I wouldn’t want to defend it AT ALL!” I hear you complain).  There are a few possibilities…Qd7 or Bd3 perhaps.  Graham lashed out with 29…f5 but after 30. exf6 gxh5 White came up with the brilliant 31. fxe7!! Winning. Crazy game!

The big Scottish clash was on third board where old rivals Jpnathan Rowson and Colin McNab were in battle.  I annotate their game here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhujfz0j_ew

See you tomorrow for round 6!