Largs Viking Chess Congress

[Alan Tate]

Is this the first time that 2 CMs have taken part in the same tournament in Scotland?

[Jonathan Livingstone]

Probably first time 2 x CM Scots. However a recent Scottish at Glasgow you played at couple of years ago that incorporated the Commonwealth had 2 x CM's. Players from India? <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chessscotland.com/event2015/Commonwealth_Chess_Championships_2014.html">http://www.chessscotland.com/event2015/ ... _2014.html</a><!-- m -->

Good enough for other countries, good enough for Scotland surely?

[Gary McPheator]

Viking Open
Round 1
CM Paul Roberts 1-0 Derek McCormack
David Potts 0D-1D Alan Grant
Walter Buchanan 1-0 Lukah Connelly-Sams
Craig Gillies 0-1 Jalal Shaheen
Jim Doyle 0.5-0.5 Marco D'Allesio
Dietah Connelly-Sams 0-1 Alex Gillies
Alan Jelfs 1-0 Andy Smith
Guenther Wurmbauer 0-1 Mike Ridge
Bob Simpson 0-1 Keith Aitchison
Stephen Smith 1-0 Jack Parkes
Everyone else 0.5 bye

Viking Challengers
Round 1
Liam Tang 1-0 Allan Buchan
Darren Gillies 0-1 Bernard Cassidy
David Watson 1-0 Liz Sams
Everyone else 0.5 bye

[Gary McPheator]

Viking Open
Round 2
Mike Ridge (1) 0.5-0.5 CM Paul Roberts (1)
Alan Grant (1) 0.5-0.5 Alan Jelfs (1)
Keith Aitchison (1) 0-1 Walter Buchanan (1)
Jalal Shaheen (1) 0.5-0.5 Stephen Smith (1)
Siegrun Macgilchrist (0.5) 0-1 CM Adam Bremner (0.5)
Jim MacRae (0.5) 0-1 Rosie Giulian (0.5)
Ian Marks (0.5) 1-0 David Congalton (0.5)
Stephen McQuillan (0.5) 0.5-0.5 Jim Doyle (0.5)
Chris Sykes (0.5) 1-0 Ben Ridge (0.5)
Brian Teaz (0.5) 0-1 Norman Lindsay (0.5)
Callum Smith (0.5) 1-0 Jonathan McKay (0.5)
Marco D'Allesio (0.5) 1-0 Derek McCormack (0.5)
Lukah Connolly-Sams (0) 1-0 Guenther Wurmbauer (0)
Jack Parkes (0) 0.5-0.5 Dietah Connolly-Sams (0)
Andy Smith (0) 0-1 Bob Simpson (0)
Alex Gillies (1) 0.5 bye
Craig Gillies (0) 0.5 bye
David Potts (0) unfortunately had to withdraw

Viking Challengers
Round 2
Bernard Cassidy (1) 0-1 Liam Tang (1)
Walter Pearson (0.5) 1-0 David Watson (1)
Ritvik Maheshwari (0.5) 0-1 Mark Smith (0.5)
Chadha Sambhav (0.5) 1-0 Pranav Arcot (0.5)
Liz Sams (0) 0-1 Allan Buchan (0)
Darren Gillies (0) 0.5 bye

[Gary McPheator]

Viking Open
Round 3
Walter Buchanan (2) 0.5-0.5 Alan Grant (1.5)
CM Adam Bremner (1.5) 1-0 Mike Ridge (1.5)
CM Paul Roberts (1.5) 0.5-0.5 Chris Sykes (1.5)
Rosie Giulian (1.5) 1-0 Callum Smith (1.5)
Alan Jelfs (1.5) 0-1 Ian Marks (1.5)
Norman Lindsay (1.5) 0-1 Jalal Shaheen (1.5)
Alex Gillies (1.5) 1-0 Marco D'Allesio (1.5)
Stephen Smith (1.5) 1-0 Keith Aitchison (1)
Jim Doyle (1) 0-1 Lukah Connolly-Sams (1)
Bob Simpson (1) 0-1 Stephen McQuillan (1)
Dietah Connolly-Sams (0.5) 0.5-0.5 Siegrun Macgilchrist (0.5)
Ben Ridge (0.5) 0-1 Jim MacRae (0.5)
David Congalton (0.5) 1-0 Brian Teaz (0.5)
Jonathan McKay (0.5) 0-1 Craig Gillies (0.5)
Guenther Wurmbauer (0) 0-1 Jack Parkes (0.5)
Derek McCormack (0) 1-0 Andy Smith

Viking Challengers
Round 3
Liam Tang (2) 1-0 Walter Pearson (1.5)
Mark Smith (1.5) 1-0 Chadha Sambhav (1.5)
David Watson (1) 0-1 Bernard Cassidy (1)
Allan Buchan (1) 1-0 Ritvik Maheshwari (0.5)
Pranav Arcot (0.5) 0-1 Darren Gillies (0.5)
Liz Sams (0) 1 bye

[Gary McPheator]

Viking Open
Round 4
Jalal Shaheen (2.5) 0-1 CM Adam Bremner (2.5)
Alex Gillies (2.5) 1-0 Walter Buchanan (2.5)
Ian Marks (2.5) 0.5-0.5 Stephen Smith (2.5)
Chris Sykes (2) 0-1 Rosie Giulian (2.5)
Lukah Connolly Sams (2) 0.5-0.5 CM Paul Roberts
Alan Grant (2) 1-0 Stephen McQuillan (2)
Craig Gillies (1.5) 0.5-0.5 Alan Jelfs (1.5)
Mike Ridge (1.5) 0.5-0.5 David Congalton (1.5)
Marco D'Allesio (1.5) 0.5-0.5 Norman Lindsay (1.5)
Jack Parkes (1.5) 0.5-0.5 Callum Smith (1.5)
Jim MacRae (1.5) 0-1 Jim Doyle (1)
Keith Aitchison (1) 1-0 Dietah Connolly Sams (1)
Siegrun Macgilchrist (1) 1-0 Bob Simpson (1)
Brian Teaz (0.5) 1-0 Ben Ridge (0.5)
Andy Smith (0) 0-1 Jonathan McKay (0.5)
Guether Wurmbauer (0) 1 bye
Derek McCormack (1) 0.5 bye

Viking Challengers
Round 4
Mark Smith (2.5) 1-0 Liam Tang (3)
Allan Buchan (2) 0-1 Sambhav Chadha (1.5)
Walter Pearson (1.5) 1-0 Darren Gillies (1.5)
Ritvik Maheshwari (0.5) 0.5-0.5 David Watson (1)
Liz Sams (1) 0-1 Pranav Arcot (0.5)
Bernard Cassidy (2.5) 0.5 bye

[Gary McPheator]

Viking Open
Round 5
Rosie Giulian (3.5) 0-1 Alex Gillies (3.5)
CM Adam Bremner (3.5) 1-0 Ian Marks (3)
Stephen Smith (3) 0-1 Alan Grant (3)
CM Paul Roberts (2.5) 0.5-0.5 Walter Buchanan (2.5)
Lukah Connolly Sams (2.5) 0.5-0.5 Jalal Shaheen (2.5)
Jim Doyle (2) 1-0 Siegrun Macgilchrist (2)
Alan Jelfs (2) 1-0 Marco D'Allesio (2)
Callum Smith (2) 0.5-0.5 Mike Ridge (2)
David Congalton (2) 0-1 Chris Sykes (2)
Stephen McQuillan (2) 1-0 Keith Aitchison (2)
Norman Lindsay (2) 0-1 Jack Parkes (2)
Derek McCormack (1.5) 1-0 Craig Gillies (2)
Jonathan McKay (1.5) 1-0 Jim MacRae (1.5)
Dietah Connolly Sams (1) 0-1 Brian Teaz (1.5)
Bob Simpson (1) 0-1 Guenther Wurmbauer (1)
Ben Ridge (0.5) 0.5-0.5 Andy Smith (0)

Viking Challengers
Round 5
Bernard Cassidy (2.5) 0.5- 0.5 Mark Smith (3.5)
Sambhav Chadha (2.5) 0-1 Liam Tang (3)
Allan Buchan (2) 0-1 Walter Pearson (2.5)
Pranav Arcot (1.5) 0-1 Ritvik Maheshwari (1)
Darren Gillies (1.5) 1-0 Liz Sams (1)
David Watson (1.5) 1 bye

[Gary McPheator]

Thank you to all of you that took part in the 2016 Largs Viking Chess Congress, we hope you enjoyed your weekend and hope to see you again next year. Thanks also to the Vikingar staff for hosting the event and making us most welcome. The assistance we receive from Chess Scotland , from chess equipment to the website, is very much appreciated. Once again, a very big thank to John McNicoll for excellently arbiting the congress and to Bob Simpson, without his help the congress wouldn't be here.

Prizes

Viking Open
1st £250 & Trophy Alex Gillies 4.5/5
2nd Trophy CM Adam Bremner 4.5/5
3rd Trophy Alan Grant 4/5
1st Grading Prize Rank 1-4 £100 CM Adam Bremner 4/5
2nd Grading Prize Rank 5-18 £100 Rosie Giulian 3.5/5
3rd Grading Prize Rank 20-33 £100 Lukah Connolly Sams 3/5

Viking Challengers
1st £125 & Trophy Mark Smith 4/5
2nd £75 & Trophy Liam Tang 4/5
3rd Trophy Walter Pearson 3.5/ 5

Overall Best Junior
Lukah Connolly Sams (Replica Lewis Chessmen Set)
Best Junior Challengers
Liam Tang (Isle of Lewis Compact Celtic Chess Set)

[Adam Bremner]

Thanks for the tournament and congratulations to Alex for winning it. Hopefully more people make it next year.

I would recommend having a think about the prizes for next year though. Both Alex and I won all our games, but came away with very different amounts, which was a lot especially as a student. In effect I was never playing for more than a grading prize, and I feel absolutely gutted not to win (even jointly) my first Open.

Fide rating it was good though, hopefully that continues. Apparently even top seeds can win points if they are good enough...

[WBuchanan]

The smaller than expected entry would have hit the prize fund badly, in conjunction with the high cost of the hall. If the resulting prize fund (outside the rating prizes) was £250 it would still only come to about £125 each if it had been split into a first and a second prize. Of course you would normally win more from 4.5/5 in an open but I don’t think Gary had much leeway in the circumstances.

I would prefer not to have a tie break (ironically, Alex would have been very happy to split the prizes) especially when there is one prize as it can be pretty random and seems to me to run counter to the points system itself. It’s interesting that the original Sonneborn-Berger idea was to add the players’ points to their existing Sum of Opponents Scores - which had been used on its own instead of the players’ points!

Thanks to Gary and co. There were plenty of positive notes - eg Rosie Giulian, Ian Marks and Steve Smith did well, only giving way in the last round, and presumably picked up some Fide points for themselves, and there was a big junior entry.

Well done the first two on getting 4/4. I’d also like to say thank you to Alex for lifts (and his family members for squashing in and around my bike!) without whom I would have had ridiculous journeys due to the Greenock road being closed. On the Saturday morning (the Gillies entourage having taken a football-inspired bye) I was half expecting to be pulled back by a police car after having to disobey a road workman who thought ‘safety’ was more important than making it to a chess game!