The Art of War
Submitted by
CM on Tue, 11/11/2008 at 3:07pm.
No, not the famous ancient Chinese book on strategy from Sun Tzu, but rather last weekend's Glasgow Congress, which departed from the standard Scottish venue of draughty old school dining hall for the far more salubrious and cultural confines of the recently renovated Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum!
Open to the public (and I mean thousands of them!), I spent the better part of 3 days playing chess while surrounded by Impressionist masterpieces, life-size Spitfire aeroplanes and all manner of weird and wonderful stuffed creatures (and I don't just mean my fellow competitors!)
Well, it was certainly different; noisy (screaming children bored with their parents' idea of a good day out), cold (an arctic blast so typical of the western part of my country) and dark (the finest-wrought chandeliers hung high in the rafters of a beautiful entrance hall, but with barely a single watt of power coursing through them).
However, this was all permissible, as the idea was to bring chess to the masses (albeit those of the masses with a more high-brow idea of how to spend a free day in a big city). And it worked! I've never seen so many non-chessplayers take an interest in the game! If chasing the child who decided to borrow 'the pretty pony' mid-game is what it takes to spark interest and enthusiasm in our game, then that's a price we may well have to pay from time-to-time.
Anyway, onto the chess itself, which despite the peculiar and often difficult environment was of quite a decent standard, helped by the presence of 4 out of the 5 Scottish Olympiad team members getting in some last-minute practice before the big event starts in Dresden this Thursday (Nov. 13th). After some fierce fighting, the Open was won by GM Colin McNab (obviously in fine form as he managed to despatch my good self on the Friday night!) and IM Andy Muir (who survived a scary time-scramble/rook-hanging moment in the final round) with 4.5/5.
As I don't yet have any of the games by the 'Big Boys' who dominated the Open, I'm going to have to show a couple of snippets from my own games, which highlight the absolute necessity for tactical skill and awareness above all else for those below master level.
A sharp little battle which all boiled down to spotting the right tactical execution at the right time.
Although my final round game was a long drawn out affair where I made my opponent suffer for what seemed like hours, the finish was yet another example of the tactical tricks and traps we have to learn, recognise and use to give us that vital edge. (Click on move list and skip to the critical part of the game if you don't fancy 60 moves of torture!)
So, I hope you enjoyed this article and as always any and all comments are most welcome.
Andy Burnett