Several Irish players participated in the Scottish championship this year, with general success. The highlight was Conor O’Donnell’s win against Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant. At 13 he’s probably the youngest Irish player ever to defeat a grandmaster.
The games from the first 7 rounds showed up as usual in TWIC (issue 923), and were imported into the IRLchess games archive from there. But only the ‘live board’ games from rounds 8 and 9 appeared in TWIC, with Mark Orr’s round 9 game the only Irish one. TWIC seems to have a strict policy of being this week in chess, so games that miss their natural place don’t get a new place in later issues.
However the games did finally appear on the tournament website, and have now been included in the IRLchess database (just search for “119thScottish Championship 2012″ in the “Search Games” feature): ten new games plus one result (the moves for Diana Mirza’s last-round win are missing on the tournament website).
Here’s one interesting situation, from another Conor O’Donnell win, this time against a 2175-rated opponent:
Conor O’Donnell – Aigerim Rysbayeva
119th Scottish Ch, round 8
14th July 2012
White is winning easily and after 36. Kf2 or any of a number of other ‘safe’ moves, would surely bring home the win quickly. Instead Conor played 36. Rxe6!??!.
Did he see the full finish? If so, well calculated. If not, he was a little lucky that it all worked out in the end. Either way it seems a bit chancy! I’d have played 36. Kf2 myself.
See if you can calculate the end from this diagram.