Chess

THE INAUGURAL British Blitz Championships took place at Imperial College, London, last weekend, 6-7 November. Sponsored by Mindscape, creators of the various ChessMaster programs, it featured both a team tournament and an individual championship, each played at the rate of five minutes a game plus three seconds a move; and each held over nine double rounds so that players faced their opponents twice with opposite colours.

The team tournament on the Saturday was dominated by Hackney, which fielded two strong teams - with their A team led by Aaron Summerscale making 61/72 and their B team 52; while Barbican 4NCL were next on 48.5.

The individual tournament took place the next day, with a total entry of 130 players in the three sections. The Open was dominated by Michael Adams, who scored an impressive 17/18, dropping just two draws. He was followed at the respectful distance of two and a half points by Jim Plaskett on 14.5; Matthew Turner was next on 12.5 and Simon Ansell, Graeme Buckley, Daniel Gormally were fourth equal on 12. Harriet Hunt and Jovanka Houska were equal on 10.5/18, with the former taking the title of British Blitz Ladies' Champion on tie-break; and Nicholas Frost became British Blitz Junior Champion, also on tie-break. There were also an amateur section (under 150) won by David Edwards on 15.5/18 and a novices' (under 100) in which Mikhail Mamon was first on 15.

One of the problems of blitz tournaments is that there is usually no record of the games. However, at the annual blitz tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the moves are all recorded, (with the odd software failure) via the electronic boards used for the grandmaster tournament itself.

Like the grandmaster tournament, this year's Wijk aan Zee blitz was won by Garry Kasparov himself, who made 10.5/13 ahead of Anand and Ivanchuk on 9. This very clean win against Jeroen Piket shows Kasparov in unusually classical mode, using the open c file associated with an Isolated Queen's pawn to excellent effect and managing to liquidate into an endgame in which his passed a-pawn proved decisive. At the end, 42 Kxa2 Nb4+ nets the bishop.

White: Jeroen Piket

Black: Garry Kasparov

Queen's gambit Declined

jspeelman@compuserve.com

1 d4 Nf6

2 c4 e6

3 Nf3 b6

4 a3 Bb7

5 Nc3 d5

6 Bg5 Be7

7 e3 0-0

8 Rc1 Nbd7

9 cxd5 exd5

10 Bd3 c5

11 0-0 Ne4

12 Bxe7 Qxe7

13 dxc5 Ndxc5

14 Nd4 Rac8

15 Nce2 g6

16 Bb1 Rfd8

17 Ba2 Qd7

18 h3 Ba6

19 b4 Na4

20 Rxc8 Rxc8

21 b5 Bxb5

22 Nxb5 Qxb5

23 Qxd5 Qxd5

24 Bxd5 Nec3

25 Nxc3 Nxc3

26 Bf3 Rc5

27 Ra1 Ra5

28 Kf1 Nb5

29 a4 Nc3

30 Ra3 Nxa4

31 Bc6 Nc5

32 Rxa5 bxa5

33 Ke2 f5

34 f4 Kf7

35 g4 Ke6

36 g5 a4

37 Kd2 Kd6

38 Be8 a3

39 Kc2 Ke7

40 Bc6 Nd3

41 Kb3 a2

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