Tuesday 15 December 2009

London Chess Classic successes

Shropshire was well represented at the London Chess Classic.

Congratulations to Nathanael Paul who came joint second in the Classic Weekend Under 145 event with 4/5; and to Athar Mehmood who won the Under 14 rapidplay event.

Mathew Best and Francis Rooney also attended the event on Saturday (taking their dad's along to pay for dinner!), and enjoyed watching the super grandmasters in the main theatre as well as the commentary by various British grandmasters in the analysis room which also included visits by the stars. Nigel Short was particularly entertaining in his post mortem of his game against Chinese GM Ni Hua. And the joint analysis from US GM Hikaru Nokamura and Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (currently rated world number 1) was astonishing. The speed with which these guys see things has to be seen to be believed. It was very exhausting just listening and makes you wonder whether these super GMs are actually human or some kind of higher level species!

We also bumped into former Shropshire player Tommy Cheng who is now based in Wimbledon and was competing in the Saturday rapidplay. All in all a fantastic event - do not miss the next one promised in 2010!

PS - Spot the Shropshire dads in the background to photo of Kramnik and Adams! (Photo from London Chess Classic report by John Saunders - www.londonchessclassic.com)