Michael Adams

I haven’t updated for a while partly because we have been switching webhost, hopefully all the links should be working again now. I didn’t play the last 4NCL but was happy to see Wood Green squeezed past White Rose in a tight match. Looking at the live games the final position of this game from one of the games in the second team match versus Bristol confused me.

It seems Black resigned here but the position is a simple draw rook’s pawn aren’t that good in king and pawn endgames. Ivan used this concept neatly to make the easiest draw in the game below.

I made my first visit to the Bunratty event at it’s 19th edition, this was more my fault than theirs as I have been invited on a few other occasions. The once mighty weekend circuit in the UK is at a pretty low ebb at the moment and a number of the most interesting events take place across the Irish Sea. The generous support of Gary O’Grady and his company Blackthorne International Transport made for a fomidable field. With no FIDE rating points at stake I experimented a bit with my openings – rather more work required I’m afraid!

The games went by in a blur, after rather too good a Saturday night my first encounter with Nigel got off to an ugly start as I was forced to fianchetto my knight although I was pressing by the end. I finished with a win in the last round leaving Nigel, Gawain and myself tied on 5/6 drawing our individual games (spare a thought for the players who finished 4= for no prizemoney). The top 2 players played off for the title (Nigel and I) although if a tiebreak is considered reliable enough to decide this you might as well use it to declare a winner. Admittedly there was only the trophy and title at stake. The tiebreak games were 5 mins without increment sudden death. The generous number of live games was a positive feature of the event but for some reason the playoff games didn’t go out live.

My second game with Nigel was no prettier, I had White and ran into big trouble, facing a substantial material disadvantage but with the clock ticking relentlessly trying to avoid perpetual check my opponent erred and the material advantage reversed as I picked up a rook. Almost immediately we liquidated into a trivial 3v1 pawn ending and it was only a question of whether I could give mate with the time remaining.
The game proceeded until I gave mate (Nigel had no mating material remaining some time before ), at this stage my clock was showing zero (I think Nigel was also at zero on his clock at this point although it was clear my time elapsed first) so the result was a bit unclear. I thought I had won (although I wasn’t sure) as Nigel made no claim about the clock until after I had delivered mate which I had an idea concluded the game, I’m not sure at exactly the precise moment the clock ticked down to 0.00. Nigel also seemed uncertain as to what the correct outcome was and asked the arbiter to make a ruling.
The arbiter enquired as to whether we wanted to agree a result which seemed a bit odd, and then established not altogether surprisingly that I was hoping for a win and Nigel a
draw. He then declared the game should be a draw as my time had elapsed before mate was given.
I thought in that case he should have called the time forfeit when it occurred rather than waiting and then asking the players to agree a result first. He suggested I appeal the decision but that didn’t seem much in the spirit of the tournament. However I am a bit curious as to exactly what the rules say in such a situation.

Ray Keene asked me to try to reconstruct the games for the Times, my best recollection of the second game is below:

Ironically, for the Sunday night blitz with no prizes at stake the organisers reverted to a 3 min+ 2 sec increment!

Anyway it was great to get back to Ireland again and reminded me that a visit to one of my other favourite weekenders, Kilkenny, is long overdue.

It seems a bit late to write much about the European team championship held in Greece, so instead I will make some comments on the ECU decision to introduce some new rules for the future bringing in a dress code of staggering complexity and dubious enforceability (will the arbiter’s exam in future contain sections on the appropriate cleanliness and odour of clothes?).
They have also banned draws by agreement in less than 40 moves. Draw restrictions certainly have their place and a complete ban as in the LCC is appropriate for some events. I think it would be better for other events to make a less onerous generalised rule that would apply to all tournaments: 30 moves for instance seemed to work well in the Dresden Olympiad. The Bundesliga functions well with a 20 move limit. So perhaps a general rule for all rated games of 25 moves would be worth trying. There are already too many different rule variations with timecontrols so some uniformity would be very welcome. The ECU have already made an exception for senior events so adding to the confusion.

Instead of fiddling with these trivial details the ECU might consider employing proper pairing systems for their events. The Euro Cup and European Team Championships were both dismal in this regard.The idea that where possible the difference in strength between team’s opposition should be minimised seems self evident but no consideration appears to be given to this obvious point.
Another question is whether remote off season holiday resorts are the best venues to promote the game. I doubt spectators numbered double figures at the Eurocup and Euro team championships combined. This year at the Euroteams the entire complex was shut down other than for the chessplayers.