pairings Rd 3 British

[JustinHorton]

He was back to his old imaginative habits one week ago.

His first 7 black moves were all made by 7 different pawns.
If White had not captured on move 8 I'm sure we would
have had all 8 panws moved in the first 8 moves.

Eventually you get confused and lose count.

[Paul McKeown]

It all reminds me rather of a game which took place between Jim Stevenson and Walter Buchanan at the Scottish Championships at Glasgow, 2000, in which the opening proceeded (from memory) 1. f4 e5 2. b3 b5 3. e4, reaching a King's Gambit position previously unseen in hundreds of years of tournament play. I've never seen so many internationally titled players crowding a board for a sight of the scoresheet to work out what on Earth was going on. After Jim won the game, Walter said, "We were having great fun, Jim, until you starting cheating by playing sensible moves..."

[Ian Lamb]

wow howell playing very agressivley vs gordon!! .jones looks to have a great postion. first result in kolbus v hawkins draw and its looks like howell winning now!!!!

[Ian Lamb]

wow looks like my predictions are going well again for round 3 just 1 wrong so far which was i said hawkins would beat kolbus but i was on the spot with summerscale lane draw and the rest not bad.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Williams-Cobb seems to have stopped. Have they agreed a draw?


J

[Ian Lamb]

yes draw ageed all results in now

[Alex Holowczak]

Williams-Cobb seems to have stopped. Have they agreed a draw?


J

3 Williams, Simon K....... 2527 (2) ½ - ½ Cobb, James............. 2432 (1½)

[Simon Brown]

Replying to Justin, William Jones, and his brother Victor, who is faring less well, are juniors from Kent. William I guess is 14, his brother a year younger. I played William in a handicap blitz - I had 7 mins, he had 33 - about 18 months ago and he beat me well.

I have been attending Kent junior events for the last year, principally as a coach but also as a parent. The Jones' are both useful players and in a few years they could do good things. However I was surprised to see them both in the Championship as well as the relevant junior event, as I don't think playing both will help them. If either gets 50%, that will be a good result.

Simon

[Alex Holowczak]

A lot of juniors who are good enough to take part in the Open/Championship do "double-up" though. Ynojosa for instance, who is lying tied for 6th at the moment (admittedly with about 30 others). I suppose they don't know any different.

[Simon Brown]

I suppose that's possible in these sad days of no adjournments. But a junior game in the morning can't be the best preparation for a very serious game in the afternoon.

When I played in the Major Open in Morecambe, must have been in the 70s, I had a game which took the regulation 5 hours, plus 4 additional 2 hour sessions. I learned more about Q endgames than from any book, just by analysing the adjourned position and working it out leisurely over the board, which was possible at 40 moves in 2½ hours.

Draw. 120 odd moves, Oliver Jackson.

[Jonathan Bryant]

A lot of juniors ....

My impression that there were loads of juniors in the major open last year and relatively few this year.

Is that right do you think or have I (very possibly) got the wrong end of the stick?

[Matt Mackenzie]

[quote="Simon Brown
When I played in the Major Open in Morecambe, must have been in the 70s[/quote]

1981, I think you will find. I know this because I paid a couple of visits and, as a result, was inspired to join a "proper" grown-ups chess club, as opposed to just mucking about at school

[Ian Lamb]

my predictions went well today again i got two wrong from 11 boards not really bad round 4 could be more testing maybe!!! i just got the hawkins result wrong and the si williams result wrong so not bad got the summerscale lane right i predict the next round tommrow.

[Alex Holowczak]

A lot of juniors ....

My impression that there were loads of juniors in the major open last year and relatively few this year.

Is that right do you think or have I (very possibly) got the wrong end of the stick?

Well, there are quite a lot of juniors in the Championship + Major Open:

Felix Ynojosa, William & Victor Jones, Sheila Dines, Ilya Iyengar, Michael Rabbitte, Akash Jain, Radha Jain, Robert Thompson (who comments here), Gordon Scott, Peter Andreev, Dominic Foord, Jesper Tambini, Samuel Walker...

Those were the few I could find quickly. It's quite possible there were more last year, but maybe they've become 17 now, and hence too old for the Junior Championship. (They don't seem to have ended up in the AM Open though.) That's a fairly decent chunk of the Under 16 section in particular. Presumably they want to play in the main Championship section, and since they're Under 16, they see the Major Open as a possible qualification route? Particularly if you want to be Under 18 Champion, because you have to be in Championship to win it. Although, good luck to them beating Howell this year! I can imagine if some of the Under 16s see their co-competitors taking part in the Open/Championship, they must be inspired to try it themselves. I had a friend who would have played in the Major Open when he was in the Under 14s last year, but didn't on the grounds that he'd "get [his] ass kicked". So, I think they want to take part in both events, by and large.

I think we need Rob's opinion here, because he is doubling up. He can probably give us an indication of the problems with it. He'll also be able to canvass the opinion of his co-competitors.

[Ian Lamb]

well michell burke playing in under16s and major open Thomas fielding playing in one week morning theres another couple you missed the main disadvantage of this you have no time to prep on chessbase 10 for the afternoon which oppent in the major open will spend all morning doing!!!