Internationals shine at Old George Blitz
(Newcastle Chronicle, 16 February 2024)
Any Newcastle or Sunderland football fan can testify to the benefits that talented young sportspeople from around the world bring to the North East. The same effect applies to chess, and international talent was very much on display this Tuesday at Newcastle Chess Club’s Open Blitz, held at the club’s new venue, The Old George Inn, just off the Bigg Market.
The nine-round tournament was won impressively by Husain Nakara, a Newcastle University student from India, on 8.5/9, ahead of fellow Newcastle University student Mate Ther on 8 and Newcastle’s Nathan Ekanem, on 6.5.
Despite only playing a few Northumbria League games so far, Nakara already has a provisional national rating of 2200 (master strength) – way above his official international rating of 1300.
The Under 1750 prize was won by John Awesome, a Newcastle player from Nigeria, while the Under 1500 prize was won by another Newcastle player, Didrik Leivdal, a Newcastle University student from Norway.
Full scores of the Old George Blitz:
1. Nakara 8.5/9;
2. Ther 8;
3. Ekanem 6.5;
4. Awesome 6;
5-6. Leivdal, John Liddle (Gosforth) 5;
7-8. Jeremy Revell, Danny Atcheson (both Newcastle) 4;
9. Daniel Williams (Consett) 3;
10-11. James Ovens (Carlisle), David Sharp (Gosforth) 2;
12. Andy Thompson (Newcastle) 0.
Local youngsters were to the fore in the National Schools Championship this week, with the North East semi-finals between four Newcastle schools producing big wins and setting up the prospect of an exciting regional final.
RGS beat St Mary’s Catholic School B 5-1, while St Cuthbert’s won by the same scoreline against Jesmond Park.
Full scores:
RGS 5-1 St Mary’s B
1. Weiming Xu 0.5-.0.5 Aveesha Mapalana
2. Ben Robinson 1-0 Luca Barbieri
3. Prachi Arora 1-0 Daniel Clark
4. Naman Berry 1-0 Karthikeyan Nandakumar
5. James Reid 0.5-0.5 Jason Wang
6. James Phillips 1-0 Jiatong Wu
St Cuthbert’s 5-1 Jesmond Park
1. Tom Weinstein 1-0 Kai Harkensee
2. Daniel Tong 1-0 Jake Turner
3. Isaac Lancaster 1-0 Tal Thompson McKie
4. Joseph Messer 1-0 Michael Pearson
5. Aazmeer Ansari 1-0 Ewan Palmer
6. Jan Erico-Briones 0-1 Harry Woodman
This week’s puzzles are taken from the current Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge in Germany, where Magnus Carlsen is taking on the world’s best players at Chess960 (where the back rank pieces are shuffled randomly for each game).
Puzzle A: Should Nakamura (White, to play) take Carlsen’s bishop on h8?

Puzzle B: How would Carlsen (Black, to play) have won here?

Puzzle C: How did Aronian (White, to play) crash through?

Puzzle D: Caruana (White, to play). Find the winning move.

Answers:
A: No. If 1 Qxh8 Nf6 2 Qg7 Rg8 3 Qh6 d5! (or 3…d6) 4 f4 Rg6 traps White’s queen.
B: 1…h4! 2 gxh4 (or 2 Kh2 Ba5 3 Nf4 Bc7 wins) 2…g3! 3 h5 Bh6! (zugzwang) 4 Ng1 g2+ 5 Kh2 Bf4+ wins.
C: 1 Rxd6+! 1-0. If 1…cxd6 2 Bb6+ Kc8 3 Rc4+ Rc7 4 Qxc7 checkmate, or 1…Rxd6 2 Rxe8+ Kxe8 3 Qxg8+ wins the queen.
D: 1 Rd6! exd6 2 Bxb6+! axb6 3 Qxb6+ Kd7 4 Qd8+ Kc6 5 Rxe6 wins.