Chess - The Scotsman 10/07/2012

How does White win?

FIRST contested in 1884, the Scottish Chess Championship is arguably the world’s longest-running continuous tournament, its only break coming during the war years. The 119th Scottish Championship at the Trades Hall in Glassford Street, Glasgow, is combined with with an International Open.

Apart from the Scottish Centenary Championship of 1984 (won by Israeli GM Lev Psakhis), it has only been a recently that the format changed from a closed event to an international open, with the highest-placed Scot taking the national title. The new format coupled with generous sponsorship from an anonymous benefactor has seen a very strong cosmopolitan entry this year, with no fewer than 30 titled players, nine being grandmasters.

With such a mix in an Open, there is the possibility of a few major upsets – and in the opening round, we saw two high-profile casualties. IM Andrew Greet, the 2010 Scottish champion, lost to Edinburgh junior Andrew Green, and English GM Mark Hebden lost to the 2200-rated Martin Mitchell, formerly of Shettleston Chess Club in Glasgow.

Leaderboard: 1-5. GM C McNab, GM D Sengupta (India), IM H Gretarsson (Iceland), M De Verdier (Sweden) and E O’Molloy (Ireland), 2/2. There is a large chasing pack of 30 players a half point behind, that includes 5 GMs (R Ruck, I Hera, M Nikolov, J Aagaard and K Arakhamia-Grant).

M Mitchell - M Hebden

Scottish International Open, (1)

King’s Indian Defence

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Be2 0–0 6 Nf3 e5 7 d5 Na6 8 Bg5 h6 9 Bh4 g5 10 Bg3 Nxe4 11 Nxe4 f5 12 Nfd2 fxe4 13 Nxe4 Bf5 14 Bd3 g4 15 0–0 h5 16 h4 Bh6 17 a3 c6 18 dxc6 bxc6 19 Nxd6! Qxd6 20 Bxf5 Qf6 21 Bc2 Nc5 22 Qe2 Bf4 23 Rad1 Rf7 24 b4 Ne6 25 Qe4 Nd4 26 Bxf4 Qxf4 27 Rde1 Raf8 28 Bd3 Rg7 29 Qxf4 Rxf4 30 Kh2 Re7 31 Re4 Kg7 32 Kg1 a5 33 Rxf4 exf4 34 Rb1 f3 35 b5 cxb5 36 cxb5 fxg2 37 b6 Rb7 38 Kxg2 Kf6 39 Ba6 Rb8 40 b7 Nf5 41 Rc1 Nxh4+ 42 Kf1 1–0