English Chess Federation

World School Chess Championships - Round 7

Matt Hunt reports:

Saturday 29 th April 2006 . It's a lovely day here and the pigeons are settling in the outfield ... [Again, that's RUBBISH! - ed]. Actually, he's still right. The sky remains grey and threatening - "cloudy" we now all call it - and the cold wind continues to blow in off the ocean. It must mean we are up to Omen VII. At this stage (and unrelated to Omen) I'll make a spurious mention of Alison (I still cannot believe that I did not notice that she had left - she wore windscreen-sized sunglasses, for goodness sake) because she wanted me to. And anyway Dan says he did phone (but wasn't explicit about whether or not he interrupted The Green Room).

But enough about The Responsible Adults. What about TPTB? Well, guess what crawled out from under a rock today: Adam "Here I am" Hunt. Only missed the team photo by a cool 5 days, but better late than never, hey?

(Caro, I hope this is sufficient?)

It is more disappointing news when the draw for Round 7 comes out: Samuel and Ben are paired against each other. It's a case of "c'est la vie" (that's Greek y'know), that is the nature of this sort of international tournament, every player is actually playing for themselves, it is not arranged as a team event. Nonetheless there is a pseudo-team angle being run: each country can create "teams" of 6 nominated players and the results of the named players are added up to create a team score. This suits us just fine - with 12 players we create two teams so everyone is involved: England St George and Team England. More anon...

Round 7 starts at 17:00. All of The Players have had at least 3 hours break since this morning, and pigged out on great Greek food cooked fresh in the pool-side café (have I mentioned the pool? Yes? Ok, but let me know if you want to see or hear more about it). Pizza, chips, chicken nuggets and orange fanta. One or two Greek salads. A club sandwich. And one slice of spinach pie. Here's something for you at home to do with your long weekend: £10 to the first correct entry that correctly matches each of The Players with their chosen food. And an extra £10 for getting The Team Mascot's choice right. All entries to be submitted in writing on £20 notes to me...

There's a sporadic outbreak of tennis amongst TPTB and the Responsible Adults. Quelled pretty quickly, so no harm done. Two Responsible Adults are seen playing a game of... wait for it... would you believe it?... Chess! One of them is thrashed. "You can see where my Player gets it from," he says. "Another hard fought draw," says Tony. Meanwhile yours truly quietly opens a bottle of the local vintage and tries to pretend he is somewhere nice.

And now the Chess bit:

What can I say? Results are below, have a look in the gallery at many of The Players at their boards early on in Round 7:

Given that on average each of The Players has now played 18 hours of chess* in the last 4 days, they are bearing up surprisingly well don't you think?

* The notable exceptions are Ben and Patrick, I have had to remove their stats as they distort the figures too much as follows:

• With an average time-per-move of 4 months 23 days 7 hours and 12 minutes, Ben isn't expected home before his 30th birthday.

• With an average time-per-move of 0.07 secs, Patrick has managed just 17 seconds in total so far.

After the excellent start to the double-day this morning, we have come back down to earth with a bump. The final tally is 3½ out of a possible 11 points in Round 7 (again only 11 points as two players are drawn against each other). Just two rounds remaining, the end of the tournament is approaching with "ground rush" (you ex-paras will know what I mean). I fear that the 3am wake-up call to return to the airport will happen any moment...

The full results of Round 7 are as follows:

And now for a couple of the finer efforts from round 7:

(7) O'Toole,George (1934) - Meyer,Andre [C02]
World Schools Chess Championship Halkidiki, Greece (7.7), 29.04.2006

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Be2 cxd4 7.cxd4 Bb4+?! this looks a bit odd, as it is the other bishop that requires exchanging in the French!. 8.Nc3 Nge7 9.0-0 Nf5 10.Na4 Qc7 11.g4! Nfe7 12.a3 Ba5 13.b4 Bb6 Black's slightly strange choice of square for his dark square bishop has enabled George to expand on the queenside and obtain a clear advantage 14.Be3 Bd7 15.Rc1 a6 16.Nc3 Qd8 17.Bd3 Rc8 18.b5! axb5 19.Nxb5 0-0 20.Nd6 Rb8 21.Qc2 h6 22.g5 Nc8 23.Nxc8 [23.gxh6! Nxd6 24.Bg5 f6 25.Bh7+ Kh8 26.hxg7+ Kxg7 27.Qg6+ Kh8 28.Qh5 is a pretty finish. As it is the monster knight has done its job and allowed the white kingside attack to crash through] 23...Rxc8 24.Qb1 Ba7 25.gxh6 Qa5 26.Kh1 g6

27.Bxg6 Kh8 28.Ng5 f6 29.Nf7+ Rxf7 30.Bxf7 Rf8 31.Qg6 Qd8 32.Qg7# 1-0

(6) Franklin,Samuel - Wetherfield,Ben [A03]
World Schools Chess Championships, Halkidiki, Greece U13 (7), 29.04.2006

1.f4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.e3 Bg7 4.Be2 0-0 5.0-0 d5 6.d3 c5 7.Qe1 Nc6 8.a4 Qc7 9.Nc3 a6 10.e4 d4 11.Nb1 Rb8 12.Qh4 e6 13.f5! A good practical decision, opening the long diagonal. 13...exf5 [13...gxf5 14.exf5 e5 15.Bh6 Bxh6 16.Qxh6 looks very dangerous] 14.Bf4 Qb6 15.Bxb8 fxe4! dynamic play from Ben, complicating the game 16.Ng5?! [16.Bd6 exf3 17.Bxf3 looks a better way to play] 16...h6 17.Nxe4 Nxe4 18.dxe4 Nxb8 19.Bd3 Be6 [19...c4! 20.Bxc4 d3+ 21.Kh1 Bxb2 is good for black] 20.b3 Nc6 21.Nd2 the smoke has cleared and white has emerged an exchange for a pawn up. However black's position is very solid, with no obvious weaknesses to attack 21...Ne5 22.h3 Qb4 23.Qf2 Qc3 24.Qe2 Nc6 25.Rac1 h5 26.Rcd1 Nb4 27.Rf3 Bh6 28.Nf1 Qb2 29.Ng3 Be3+ 30.Kh1 Na2 31.Qf1 Nb4 32.Qe2 Na2 33.Qf1 Nb4 34.Qe2 Na2 In the final position Sam had 9 minutes left, and Ben 6.A fine fighting effort by both players. ½-½

The draw for Round 8:

The Players' results to date:

And now the photo he didn't want you to see - don't tell him I showed you:

What is going on with the shoes? Is that really necessary? - ed]