London tournament announcement

[Jonathan Rogers]

Hmm. I think a draw now (after Ka3 h2). Exciting finish though.

[Ben Purton]

! doh

[John Moore]

Yeah h2 makes the half - White can't control b3 and promote

[Ian Lamb]

yes game drawn Ben can count his money !

[John Saunders]

Just back from the tournament... as a considerable consolation for being displaced from third spot, Luke McShane was awarded the tournament brilliancy prize of 10,000 euros for his round five win against Nakamura. There is a gala prize-giving at Simpsons where plans have been announced to have another tournament in 2010 and a world championship match in 2012.

[Steve Rooney]

That's excellent news about another event in 2010. I went on Saturday with a colleague and our two sons and we all had a great time. The setting was first class and the commentary room was very entertaining. Couple of issues with very softly-spoken GMs in post mortems, but only minor really. It was also a very nice touch to be greeted on arrival in the conference centre and told where everything was. A couple of our county juniors took part in the weekend events and both did very well.

If I had time, it would have been good to make a weekend of it and play rapidplay one day and watch the Classic games on the other. Perhaps it would be good to have a rapidplay on both weekend days to make this a flexible option for weekenders as arriving for an early start on Saturday is difficult if you are travelling from afar.

I hope the event was a commercial success for the organisers, they deserve to succeed in relaunching the UK as a destination for such major events.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Couple of issues with very softly-spoken GMs in post mortems, but only minor really.

Agreed -although to be fair it wouldn't have been such a problem had there not been a couple of very rude people in the audience talking about an ongoing game without making any attempt to keep their voices down. However good you are as an organiser you can't legislate for the odd twunt that's bound to be present at any chess event.

What impressed me about this was that when I went back on Tuesday they'd brought a microphone and speaker system into the commentary room so hearing the post mortem analysis wasn't a problem (even for one of the previously quiet GMs). Problem identified and problem solved rather than left to fester.

Best chess event of my lifetime by far.

[Adam Raoof]

Couple of issues with very softly-spoken GMs in post mortems, but only minor really.

Agreed -although to be fair it wouldn't have been such a problem had there not been a couple of very rude people in the audience talking about an ongoing game without making any attempt to keep their voices down. However good you are as an organiser you can't legislate for the odd twunt that's bound to be present at any chess event.

What impressed me about this was that when I went back on Tuesday they'd brought a microphone and speaker system into the commentary room so hearing the post mortem analysis wasn't a problem (even for one of the previously quiet GMs). Problem identified and problem solved rather than left to fester.

Best chess event of my lifetime by far.

Lovely to hear that, Jonathan! The original mics were used to broadcast the commentary live on the internet, as well as to amplify. We also added commentary in the foyer over the weekend when it got really busy, and had some great GM kibitzers such as Nunn and Parker. The blitz events every evening were a great success - 50+ entries a night at the weekend!

[Jonathan Rogers]

I have even been told of someone who turned up at the venue (without a ticket) just to spectate over the weekend, and who could not be admitted for space reasons (Fire regulations perhaps?). Unfortunate though that was for him, I relate this here just to indicate how successful the event has been.

Two points to reconsider

- having a 10,000 Euro brilliancy prize is all very well if you have Steinitz and von Barbleden playing, but it is a hostage to fortune and is bound to raise eyebrows when it turns out that no brilliant game was played, as happened here - and the risk is quite high when you only have 28 games and consider that in top level games the brilliance often is relegated to the annotations as one player sees and manages to avert it. Naka v McShane will surely be remembered as the most over-rewarded game in chess history.

- obviously the 3-1-0 scoring system. If you are only inviting players who generally play to win, and if you add the Sofia rules to boot, then why on earth do you need to take any more measures to incentivise fighting chess? And clearly this can pervert the natural finishing order. The sight of Luke McShane on clear third after round 6, despite being on -1 in traditional terms, did jar somewhat.

[Steve Rooney]

Malcolm Pein did announce on Saturday that the event had been a sellout for the weekend days, which is quite an achievement.

[Simon Ansell]

Hopefully is of interest: Interviews at the London Chess Classic