After round 2 today, we have begun to settle in and rely on our talents. The round has just come to a close and as a quick update we have 8 wins and 5 draws to report today. A highlight was in the under 7s, both Callaghan McCarty-Snead and Jeff Tomy won their games.
Callaghan McCarty-Snead - 'Having a blast!'
Sam Cobbold won, too, against a Romanian graded 1764 – they were even throughout until he put his rook on a half-open file, used two rooks and a knight to slowly tear apart his defense, and forced his opponent to resign in the endgame – he was four pawns up. Ananth Vijayakumar won his game against an Indian opponent. He was even in the opening and the middle until his opponent swapped a knight for his bishop and he managed to capture the pawns, and Ananth managed to get a queen for the win. Alex van Lint prevailed against a Tunisian opponent – he was in a draw situation throughout the game against a stronger player, but in the end sacked his knight and it was check forking the king rook, forcing his opponent to take it and he resigned, basically (says Alex, “although he could have got out of it but didn’t”) and James Moreby defeated a Romanian. He reports, “I played the English opening, in middle game he accidentally trapped his own bishop, and I was a piece up for the whole game until the endgame where I had a passed pawn and then he sacrificed his knight for a pawn and I went on to win the endgame … and that’s it!” Jake Liang and Karina Chan won their games strongly.
The best draw of the day was held by Richard Zhu, against the top seed from Ukraine, rated 2085. Max Elliott drew against a local “Yahhhj” – he says, “I was attacking for most of the game, but in the end I couldn’t keep my attack up, but after that we were still equal and therefore agreed a draw.” The girls brought in three solid draws – Eleanor Hapeshi against a Moldovan rated 1480, Jennifer Neil against a Moldovan rated 1420 and Imogen Camp against an Indian opponent.
Joseph Friar, the last to finish, lost by a hair against an Azerbaijani player rated 1822.
- Hillary Altman