Very quick update – Gawain wins championship from Short; Smerdon cheats justice
A lightning quick update before I head off for the tournament after-party. A big congratulations to Gawain Jones, the 2011 Commonwealth Chess Champion! Gawain won the title from Nigel Short on tie-break, due to, bizarrely, me beating one of Nigel’s previous opponents in the last round.
In an even crueller and more unfair twist of fate, I finished in third. Justice did not prevail, not only because my opponent, Watu Kobese, was beating me severely, but also because I played some of the worst chess of my life and I was worse in all eleven of my games. Well, I guess there’s no accounting for luck in these big opens…
More to follow.
Congratulations with your third spot! I am sad to hear that Nick could not find the correctly published games and scores on Chess-Results. I guess if you have been in Sydney in 1967, you have trouble to operate the “on button” for the computer!
Hi David
Your blog is the best thing in the cloud coming out of Emperor’s Palace.
The organisers did not broadcast with any conviction. I am the chess correspondent for the Cape Argus and really needed to follow the event, but half the game scores were either incomplete or rubbish!
I was in Sydney in 1967 the era of Purdey snr & jr, Koshnitsky, Hamilton, Fuller and Flatow.
If you feel like sending me some of your dreadful games feel free — you did come third!
regards
Nick Barnett
I saw in an interview that you’re considering writing a book on the Portuguese variation (3… Bg4 in the Scandinavian), and just wanted to say that I really really hope you do write this book since it’s a fascinating and fun variation and it would be great to get a GM’s honest perspective on it! Thanks for the neat blog too.