I first referenced this video in the piece about Alexander Petrov , but it bears another look: You will notice that Paul Morphy was dominant throughout his entire competitive career, but his reign as world #1 was interrupted briefly by a player called Kolisch, who then almost immediately disappears from the scene. So this piqued my interest: who was this mysterious Kolisch, and why is his name so much less familiar than those of his contemporaries? Well, the answer, on looking at his Wikipedia article , seems to be that he just had a very short playing career, and did not play much against the big names of his day. This is backed up by his chessgames page , which shows nearly all his games coming in the years 1857-1867. This did, however, include two triumphs in international tournaments. One was the relatively weak Cambridge 1860 event, but the other was the rather stronger Paris 1867 event, which would also star future world champion Steinitz. This tournament ef...
The top-board clash in Round 5 was a rather tame and uninspiring draw in ten moves. This meant that a decisive game on board 2 would likely produce a sole leader, and Keith Arkell duly delivered. In true Arkell style, he won the game in the ending. He now leads the tournament with 4½ points, ahead of six players (R Pert, Clarke, Grieve, Emms, Wadsworth and Gormally) on 4. Harry Grieve's TPR so far of 2599 means he is just about on course for a GM norm, never mind the IM norm that would also be very valuable. I am half a point behind the chasing pack, on 3½, after a nice win against Stephen Dishman, who went into an opening line that, while maybe not really all that good for white, I have a very good record in. My reward for this win is to face top seed Nick Pert.
How would tournament leader Harry Grieve approach Round 9 ? He knew beforehand that a draw would be sufficient to get him a GM norm and a playoff place (or outright victory if N Pert - Arkell was a draw), and many people speculated that he would play a very solid opening to maximize his drawing chances. Not a bit of it; he played a very adventurous opening in which he sacrificed the exchange early on, and ended up sacrificing another one later. For a long while, it wasn't clear what the result would be, and when Pert got an early advantage against Arkell and smoothly converted it, the organizing team were gearing themselves up for a playoff. It turned out not to be necessary; the complications eventually resolved in Grieve's favour, and he ended up delivering mate in a position where his opponent's two queens were useless to prevent it. He thus won the tournament outright, as well as obtaining his final IM norm (and the title) and first GM norm. Nick Pert finished second, ...
Comments
Post a Comment