benedgell wrote:Bit of an anti- climactic last round to be honest.
Rather anti-climatic rounds 7-10, it might be said. Gawain's win yesterday was about the only decisive game by anyone on the top boards that I remember since, well, his previous decisive game in round six. Those who remember Lloyds Bank, or look at Gibraltar each year, will be very surprised to see that 7.5/10 suffices for
unshared first place. Sumets in the last round was symptomatic; no need to actually agree a draw in that position even though it was equal. Gawain would have been likely to have accepted a draw at a later time too.
For all that, Gawain himself was a worthy winner; rarely looked in trouble, and dropped some of his halves to a player who was happy to draw with white in round 2 and presumably at least one on account of the lurgy.
Incidentally, although the winners at Gibraltar tend to rack up high scores, until last year that tournament had issues with non-fighting chess too, with the majority of "GM journeymen" basically drawing between rounds four to eight and then making a bid for a reasonable share of the prize fund in the last two rounds.