CSC Teesside: 9th London Chess Classic: Second Great Day at Google HQ

Sunday, 3 December 2017

9th London Chess Classic: Second Great Day at Google HQ

The Pro/Biz Cup made for an excellent start at the London Chess Classic. The second and final day at Google HQ - home of DeepMind, one of the tournament's sponsors - brought the first round of the Classic itself plus a great day of junior chess.

The world's top players are very difficult to beat and this was proved yet again in the first round of the Classic when all five games ended in draws. That doesn't mean they played dull games and the variations hiding under the surface will show that some players had a small advantage they were pushing to increase and others had to play very well to avoid ending up with a significantly worse position.

We were already coming to the end of our big junior day as the top stars were taking their seats. Five London schools brought their chess players to Google HQ for a whole series of events including coaching from CSC tutors, a Masterlcass from International Lawrence Trent and a five-round tournament.

CSC London Coordinator Jonathan Bryant put together a fabulous series of varied events and had assembled a very strong team of CSC tutors to teach the children. The sessions were enjoyed by all (including the school staff).

We even took everyone into the playing hall to watch the start of the Grandmaster games and I am sure for many - if not all - of the juniors this was their very first opportunity to see Magnus Carlsen, the reigning World Chess Champion, in action. Some of the juniors asked me if they could stay to obtain his autograph and were quite taken aback to discover that games at this level could take four or more hours to reach a conclusion.

Then it was back to the Ziggy Stardust room to award the medals and trophy to the most successful juniors. Malcolm Pein was on hand to congratulate everyone on a very successful day.

CSC Tutor Anu

CSC Tutor Sabrina

CSC Tutor Lucas

CSC Tutor Roman

Solving Sabrina's problems

CSC Tutor Aga

Deep concentration

The staff enjoyed the sessions too

Warming up the audience for IM Lawrence Trent

Examining the finale of Harry Potter's Wizard Chess checkmate

And...the moment they all waiting for; lunch!

Jonathan Bryant's chess quiz

I played the children who had the tournament byes. Here Aga is advising my opponent to play Bc4, Qf3 and Qxf7 checkmate! Fortunately for me, the game did not end in that way.