Chess - The Scotsman 02/03/2012

THE Duke of Wellington claimed that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. And a fortnight ago at Eton College, Scotland won its first British Chess Solving Championship title as GM Colin McNab from Dundee took the crown.

The 2012 British Chess Solving Championship was won by the five-times former world champion Piotr Murdzia from Poland, with the runner-up spot going to Belgium’s Eddy van Beers, but with both competing ‘hors concours’, third-placed McNab took the title ahead of Britain’s former world champions Jonathan Mestel and John Nunn.

Today’s diagram shows one of the many problems Colin had to solve en route to the title. The solution is 1 Qg2! (threat 2 Qg8 mate); 1...Bxg2 2 Nxf5+ and 3 Ne7; 1...Nxg2 2 Nc2+ and 3 Nb4; 1...Rxg2 2 Ne2+ and 3 Nc3; 1...Nc7 2 Ne6+ and 3 Nxc7; 1...Nb6 2 Qg8+ Kc5 3 Qc4.

In over-the-board competition, Colin has represented Scotland 12 times in Olympiads and is a four-time Scottish champion. In 1992, he became Scotland’s second grandmaster and in that same year, Colin also became the Commonwealth champion. He has also drawn games with superstars Garry Kasparov (1977), Vassily Ivanchuk (2005) and Viktor Korchnoi (1982) – a memorable encounter that was all the more impressive, as only a couple of years earlier, Korchnoi played Karpov for the world title and was still one of the top four players in the world.

V Korchnoi - C McNab

Lloyds Bank Masters, 1982

King’s Indian Defence

1 d4 d6 2 g3 g6 3 Bg2 Bg7 4 Nf3 Nf6 5 0–0 0–0 6 c4 Nbd7 7 Nc3 e5 8 e4 c6 9 b3 exd4 10 Nxd4 Re8 11 Be3 Nc5 12 f3 d5 13 Nxc6 bxc6 14 Bxc5 dxc4 15 Qxd8 Rxd8 16 Rfd1 Be6 17 bxc4 Nd7 18 Bd4 Ne5 19 Nd5 cxd5 20 cxd5 Bh3 21 Bxe5 Bxe5 22 Bxh3 Bxa1 23 Rxa1 Rab8 24 Kf2 Rb2+ 25 Ke3 Rxh2 26 Bf1 h5 27 f4 Rc2 28 a4 Kf8 29 Ra3 a5 30 Kd4 Rf2 31 Bb5 h4 32 gxh4 Rxf4 33 h5 gxh5 34 Ke5 Rg4 35 Rh3 Rg5+ 36 Kf6 Rg6+ 37 Kf5 Rh6 38 Bc6 Rdd6 39 e5 draw agreed