Lothians Congress Minor

[David G Congalton]

Saturn was the Roman god of Time and his weapon was a scythe. He chopped all my little fish dreams to pieces in round three.

The minor section at the Lothians was very closely contested and I don't think there was really that much between any of those who finished in the top half. On another day, any on of a dozen players could have won had a result or two turned out differently. There were quite a few juniors snapping on the heels of the adults. The likes of Stuart Wynne, Declan Shafi and Anna Milton are starting to mature as players and I think their performances at the weekend are an indication of what's to come. I think all three are just on the brink of moving up to the next level, where they will be challenging for prizes on a Sunday afternoon on a regular basis.

Among the adults, everybody seemed to take points of everybody else. David Watson had an outstanding four rounds but fell at the last hurdle. I was surprised that Mahir lost in round 2 to Bill Hepburn, with the withdrawal of Mike Mitchell through illness, Mahir was my pre-tournament favourite. This was Mahir's only loss.

Bill had a good tournament but his 3rd round loss to Dave Watson meant he was in a similar situation to me going into round 4, needing two wins and other results to go his way to stand a chance of being in the prizes. Round 3 losses can be quite difficult to recover from, as it's usually round 3 when the form players meet and you go from having the outcome in your own hands to relying on others. Both Bill and myself drew in round four, which is credible given the effort required to put a round 3 loss behind you but nevertheless put us out of the running for the top prizes. Bill did, however, win a grading prize, so his efforts were rewarded.

My conquerer Martin O'Leary also suffered at the hands of David Watson and was doubly unlucky to face Mahir in the last round. After going in to Sunday as joint leader two defeats must have been hard to bear.

The board 1 matches were moved downstairs for the fourth and fifth rounds to be played on the sensory boards. I'm all for using the sensory boards and really wanted to play on them this week but moving them away from where the rest of the section was taking place meant that you couldn't observe what was going on at the top of the section, without running the risk of your opponent making a quick move and running your clock down.

I'm not sure how you would address that though, while still having the incentive of playing your match live on the net. Perhaps Donald or one of the control team could have come upstairs to the minor section after each move had been made and played the move on a board in the minor hall, then went back downstairs to see what the next move was, before coming back up to make the move on the "empty" board.

Apart from that very minor issue, I would say that it was another very well run congress and thanks to all whose hard work made it possible.

Next stop on this years tour is Dundee. I wonder where the pet shop is there.