Chess
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Your support makes all the difference.THE INAUGURAL British Blitz Championships took place at Imperial College, London, last weekend, 6-7 November. Sponsored by Mindscape, creators of the various ChessMaster programs, it featured both a team tournament and an individual championship, each played at the rate of five minutes a game plus three seconds a move; and each held over nine double rounds so that players faced their opponents twice with opposite colours.
The team tournament on the Saturday was dominated by Hackney, which fielded two strong teams - with their A team led by Aaron Summerscale making 61/72 and their B team 52; while Barbican 4NCL were next on 48.5.
The individual tournament took place the next day, with a total entry of 130 players in the three sections. The Open was dominated by Michael Adams, who scored an impressive 17/18, dropping just two draws. He was followed at the respectful distance of two and a half points by Jim Plaskett on 14.5; Matthew Turner was next on 12.5 and Simon Ansell, Graeme Buckley, Daniel Gormally were fourth equal on 12. Harriet Hunt and Jovanka Houska were equal on 10.5/18, with the former taking the title of British Blitz Ladies' Champion on tie-break; and Nicholas Frost became British Blitz Junior Champion, also on tie-break. There were also an amateur section (under 150) won by David Edwards on 15.5/18 and a novices' (under 100) in which Mikhail Mamon was first on 15.
One of the problems of blitz tournaments is that there is usually no record of the games. However, at the annual blitz tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the moves are all recorded, (with the odd software failure) via the electronic boards used for the grandmaster tournament itself.
Like the grandmaster tournament, this year's Wijk aan Zee blitz was won by Garry Kasparov himself, who made 10.5/13 ahead of Anand and Ivanchuk on 9. This very clean win against Jeroen Piket shows Kasparov in unusually classical mode, using the open c file associated with an Isolated Queen's pawn to excellent effect and managing to liquidate into an endgame in which his passed a-pawn proved decisive. At the end, 42 Kxa2 Nb4+ nets the bishop.
White: Jeroen Piket
Black: Garry Kasparov
Queen's gambit Declined
jspeelman@compuserve.com
1 d4 Nf6
2 c4 e6
3 Nf3 b6
4 a3 Bb7
5 Nc3 d5
6 Bg5 Be7
7 e3 0-0
8 Rc1 Nbd7
9 cxd5 exd5
10 Bd3 c5
11 0-0 Ne4
12 Bxe7 Qxe7
13 dxc5 Ndxc5
14 Nd4 Rac8
15 Nce2 g6
16 Bb1 Rfd8
17 Ba2 Qd7
18 h3 Ba6
19 b4 Na4
20 Rxc8 Rxc8
21 b5 Bxb5
22 Nxb5 Qxb5
23 Qxd5 Qxd5
24 Bxd5 Nec3
25 Nxc3 Nxc3
26 Bf3 Rc5
27 Ra1 Ra5
28 Kf1 Nb5
29 a4 Nc3
30 Ra3 Nxa4
31 Bc6 Nc5
32 Rxa5 bxa5
33 Ke2 f5
34 f4 Kf7
35 g4 Ke6
36 g5 a4
37 Kd2 Kd6
38 Be8 a3
39 Kc2 Ke7
40 Bc6 Nd3
41 Kb3 a2
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