The London Chess Classic

I spent the London Chess Classic right at the centre of things. I was heading up the information desk, and so the first port of call for spectators, dignitaries, players and schools.* Having someone with a chess background there is useful, and not just to field the more technical questions - this year we didn't accidentally challenge Kasparov for a badge at the VIP door, and we managed to rescue Vachier-Lagrave when he was dragged in on his ear by security on the rest day. But beyond little episodes like these, I reckon that any of my readers could give a fuller account of what happened! It's funny how much passes right under your nose when you're there in person.

Although I worked a ridiculous number of hours - usually about 9:00-9:00, but sometimes even more - it certainly wasn't a drag: what sort of chess player wouldn't want to be there? It's a cliché, but time flies, and hours could pass in mere moments. By all accounts, the Super-GM tournament was a very slow burner (though from a home perspective, it was nice to see Adams mercilessly halving his way through the field) but my focus was largely on the Festival tournaments - they felt like my babies, given how much of my office time they took up beforehand.

I only played one game, but it was an opportunity I had to take. There were three simuls, and whilst Speelman and McShane drew good crowds, only one GM kept coming up to the desk to check his numbers, and that was my opponent, the legendary John Nunn. I'm sure his chess CV is well known enough (though you could always read the blurb I wrote on the LCC website...) but he also has a very fun style - 'the world's strongest coffee-house player' - and shares most of my opening repertoire, as well as a taste for mainlines. The difference is that I'm a rotten tactician and he's a three-time world champion of problem-solving - so perhaps it's not surprising that, as I quipped later, "we got to the end of theory and then I lost":

A loss to order then - but at least I can say I played the game. It was probably useful to get a theoretical refresher, since the English Attack remains popular at my level despite its dented reputation. Black's position is still holding up fine, although 8. h3!? needs more attention. In any case, theory runs out eventually, and thereafter I was outplayed very quickly. Trading off one of my few active pieces with 24... Nc4?? turned out to be very costly.

According to the ChessBase report (say, who's that dashing chap on the left-most board in the photos?) Nunn scored +18 =2 -0 - very impressive, especially since he seemed to be in trouble on a few boards when I left for the desk. But he was obviously fired up for it, and that made it more enjoyable for everyone. And as he was at pains to point out, he did attract more players than his colleagues...

I suppose I should probably write more than these few paragraphs - few people were in as privileged a position as me, and fewer still have written about it. But there's still so much to do! The final working week of the year was a bit of a come-down, but after that I got to rest for a while - at last. Two-and-a-half weeks after this game, it was time to start my usual calendar-year closer, the London Christmas Congress.



* The school events are a really big part of the Classic from CSC's perspective: 2,000 children come every year (there was a waiting list for the waiting list by early November), and get treated to a lesson from a CSC tutor, the Chris [Ward] & Danny [King] Show in which they get to play on the auditorium stage, and finally a huge schools tournament. The logistics are crazy, but the enthusiasm is infectious. However, everything's finished before the doors open to the public, so the whole thing is largely unknown.