Gormally storms to blitz victory

/in

(Newcastle Chronicle, 11 October 2024)

Alnwick Grandmaster Danny Gormally enjoyed a handsome victory in the North East Qualifier for the 2024 UK Blitz Championships, held on Sunday 6th October at Gosforth Empire Club. Gormally scored 14.5 points out of 15, well ahead of the field.

He conceded his only draw to Supratit Banarjee (London) who scored 13. Along with Gormally, Banarjee also qualified for the UK Open Finals in Leamington Spa on November 16. The top two female players qualifying from the North East Zonal were Madara Orlovska (Latvia, 9 points) and Irina Briggs (Leam Lane, 4 points).

Gormally and Banarjee will be competing for a first prize of £1,000 in the National Finals, while the Women’s Championship has a first prize of £500.

The other leading scorers were Husain Nakara (Newcastle University) 10.5, Jude Samarasinghe (Sri Lanka) 10 and FIDE Master Andrew Burnett (Newcastle) 9.5. Twenty-eight players took part.

The event, with a time control of all moves in 3 minutes, plus a bonus of 2 seconds added per move, has been run since 2018. The UK Open Blitz this year attracted a total of 501 players, with two players qualifying from each of the zonals for the Open Finals, and two for the Women’s Finals.

The London zonal attracted the biggest field (176 players), followed by South West (Bristol, 73), Midlands (Birmingham, 64), North West (Manchester, 60), Edinburgh (48), Cardiff (35) and Belfast (17).

The first round of Northumberland Chess Association’s main winter competitions, the Northumbria League and Northumberland Individual Championships, are now underway. Divisions 1, 4 and 6 have been playing their first matches this week.

In Division 1, Newcastle Dragons beat Tynemouth A 4-0, Newcastle University beat Leam Lane 3-1 and Gosforth Empire beat Gosforth Salters 3-1. Jesmond Monarchs have the bye.

In Division 4, Tynemouth C beat Tynedale A 4-0 and Newcastle University B beat Alnwick B 3-1.

And in Division 6, Newcastle Cavaliers beat South Shields Custodians 3-1.

In the Zollner (Open) section of the Northumberland Individual Championships, the early leaders with 1/1 are Tim Wall, Andy Burnett and Nathan Ekanem (Newcastle), and Paul Dargan (Tynemouth). Ekanem pulled off a fine victory over FIDE Master David Walker, who is returning to playing in the competition after several years as its organiser.

PUZZLES

This week’s puzzles illustrate four famous checkmate patterns. For a bonus question, three of the checkmates are named after real chess players from history, and one is named after a fictional character. Which one is the odd one out?

Puzzle A: Black to move (Anastasia’s Mate).

Puzzle B: White to move (Boden’s Mate).

Puzzle C: White to move (Cozio’s Mate).

Puzzle D: White to move (Damiano’s Mate).

ANSWERS:

A: 1…Ne2+ 2 Kh1 Qxh2+! 3 Kxh2 Rh5 checkmate.
B: 1 Qxc6+! bxc6 2 Ba6 checkmate.
C: 1 Qh7+ Kg4 2 Qh3 checkmate.
D: 1 Rh8+! Kxh8 2 Qh5+ Kg8 3 Qh7 checkmate.

Odd one out: ‘Anastasia and the Game of Chess’ was the title of an 1803 novel by Johann Heinse.