The Inaugural Lindores Christmas Handicap tournament took place last night at the club. The games were played over 20 minutes with the time split depending on the players ratings – the biggest handicap was 3 mins vs 17 mins when Gabor Horvath played Andy Hughes. It was a fun filled night which saw some exciting, high quality chess…. and also some horrendous blunders!
Somewhat surprisingly for a quickplay tournament there were only a few upsets, with the most notable of these Andy Hughes beating Jim McLean and Richard Gould beating Calum Leitch. Andy, as the lowest rated player, finished the tournament on 1/6 however this didn’t reflect his true performance and with better time management he would have scored considerably higher….and possibly have taken the scalp of Ross Harris!
The tournament winner was Gabor Horvath who finished on an impressive 6/6 having beaten off all comers despite mostly starting with a considerable time deficit. Calum Leitch failed to beat Gabor in the final round, which would have taken it to an armageddon game, but claimed outright second place with a score of 4/6.
This season Ian Kilpatrick has quickly become known as the seconds endgame aficionado with some scintillating endgame play and last night he even managed to draw a knight and pawn endgame when 2 pawns down (which were both passed) and a terrible king position! Congratulations to Gabor on winning the tournament but also to all the players who made it such a fun night.
Lindores Chess Club 