New Blood beats Old Hands

It happened last week and it happened again this. The talented new influx of Lib chess players showed the old-timers how it’s done. This week it was Mister ‘scottwestron’ Westron’s turn to step up on to the highest podium place.

With Doctor ‘NRK104’ Kirby having shaken off a cold and hungry to prove his online credentials, and with Mister ‘Ndi78’ in such good form the week before, it was hard to tell who would top out. But Mister ‘scottwestron’ Westron started strongly, kept up the pace, and despite losing to Doctor ‘NRK104’ Kirby was still able to claim gold under the Chess.com Arena points system.

Well done Mister ‘scottwestron’ Westron! Fine stuff.

Games of the week

Each week, this journal’s Editorial Committee will present to the Chess Circle two online games from that week’s session that, in their esteemed view, display a particularly lively charm. Perhaps it will be a ferocious attack, or a dogged defence, maybe a catastrophic blunder or simply something that piques the Committee’s interest…

We start with this rather remarkable game, in which Mister ‘GiffinNLC’ Giffin QC MA (Oxon) managed to save the game by engineering a stalemate of his black king on a1 in a completely lost position. A majestic swindle requiring equal measures of inspired vision, accurate technique and utter bare-faced cheek.

But it was, after all, Mister ‘scottwestron’ Westron’s night. The Editorial Commitee felt it was only fair that one his best of the night makes it to Game of the Week.

Here we see the evening’s champion get in to a fair bit of trouble early on before pulling things around and pressuring his opponent into making a game-losing mistake:

Two fun games. See you all next Wednesday.