Hampshire Individual Championship 2000

Round 4

This round saw Ian Stenhouse taking on James Sherwin. Again I haven't got any games from round 4 (not even my own, as I had a bye), so I can only give the result. This was a win by James Sherwin and it looked like there was only going to be one player who could stop him, namely Jeremy Fraser Mitchell who also won. No huge surprises in this round; Martin Buckely has been graded much higher than 138, so It wasen't a shock when he drew against P.McKeown. Also Jessie Gilbert is a rapidly improving junior which she proved by beating John Wilkinson. When I spoke to John the next day, he said that he was completely outplayed in this game!

Round 5

The Hampshire Chess Secretary John Wheeler returned from his county match Devon vs Wiltshire, (he plays for Devon!) with a welcome supply of double sided scoresheets. This meant that I was finally able to get all the remaining games of the tournament. The main game of the round was obviously Jeremy Fraser-Mitchell against James Sherwin. If Jeremy could manage to win he would move into clear first place with one round to play. The opening of the game was a Queen Gambit excepted.  I have to admit I don't know much about these Queen Gambit positions, but from the diagramed position Jeremy played 25.Bf3 (Diagram 1) instead of say 25.g3 and after 25..Qa3 resigned.  This seems to be given James Sherwin a bit too much respect. Even though White is worse, the position is not really resignable. Maybe the clock times had something to do with it? If White had played 25.g3, he would have only been slightly worse, although he is very weak on the White squares. A probable line after 25...Qa3 would be 26.Qxa3 Rxa3 27.Ne4 Na4 28.Rc1 Bxe4 29.Bxe4 Nxc3. Play through the game using the Game Viewer.

The big shock of the round was Fraser McLeod's win over Mike Yeo. In an game that saw the advantage switch from side to side, it was Mike that made the final mistake. Although Mike Yeo had given up the exchange he was still in the game as he had a couple of extra pawns, including a passed one. In Diagram 2 31.b3 has just been played, instead of 31.Qe4. Although Black is still better after Qe4, the game is not over. Fraser wins nicely from the diagramed position 31..Qc3 32.Kb1 bxa4 33.Qxa6+ Kd8 34.Qa8+ Ke7 35.Qxd5 exd5 36.bxa4 Qb4+ 37.Kc1 Qxa4 38.Kd2 Qg4 0–1 Play through the game using the Game Viewer.

Another fine finish was seen the the game between Jessie Gilbert and D.Black. The game was heading towards a repeated position, but Black wanted more. In the Diagram 3 the moves Qc4 to b5 has been played a couple of times and Black has retreated the Knight back to f8. When Black tried to win the position by taking the b3 pawn in the diagramed position. He soon fell into a mating trap as the game finished Qxb3 43.Qxd7 Qxf3+ 44.Kg1 Qxe2 45.Qd8+ Kg7 46.Bf6+ Kh6 47.Qf8+ 1–0. This deserves a picture (Diagram 4) as the final position is quite pretty. Play through the game using the Game Viewer.

Results from round five.

Round 1    Round 2/3    Round 6