Crunch time!

(Photo taken by Stephen Connor)

It’s 9:35pm on Wednesday 4^th August 2010. The pairings have just been published and Simon will now face the tournament leader, Mickey Adams. It’s a pretty difficult pairing but even more so as Simon has the black pieces for the second round in a row. Mickey is leading by 1.5 points so Simon must win if he has any chance of becoming British Champion. Here’s how the game went:

Simon chose to play the Sicilian and in response, Mickey opted for 3. Bb5+ (the Moscow variation). Both players followed standard opening theory until move ten when Simon mistakenly played 10… Rc8. He should have played 10… Nc6, followed by Rac8, e6 and d5.

Unfortunately, the game continued to go downhill for Black when he chose to play d5 and e5 at the wrong moment. By move 18, White had already gained a considerable advantage. Mickey has just played 18. Ne4 in the position below:

Sadly, as is often the case when a player makes a mistake in the opening, Simon was unable to recover and he eventually conceded the game on move 27. Although this was a disappointing result for Simon, he still has all to play for in the last round as 2^nd place is still up for grabs.