There were no upsets in the opening round of the 2022 Frank Scott Shield – though not for want of trying!
In a small field, we had six new players all under 900, and seven who had played before and were all rated at least 1300. That meant one match between two experienced players as Wenle took on Kavin, and it was of course given the usual board 1 treatment. Reigning champion Kavin got off to a winning start in it, getting rooks to the second to pick up a pawn or two and convert from there.
On the other boards, Danny picked up a pawn, then a piece, then a rook, then the game, against newcomer Sébastian, who was playing his first formal tournament game. A fairly easy game, but then part of the point of this tournament is to have these mismatches where the newer players can learn, as Danny himself knows from his own tournament debut!
Fearghal beat the other unrated player Alex, Yubo beat brother Yanbo in what he reckoned was their first meeting, and Karel beat Peter after picking up an exchange around move 20.
So far so easy for the seeds – but Ben was pushed right to the wire by Max. By the time they reached increments – and the Frank Scott Shield’s shorter time control means that comes around a lot earlier than usual, a legacy of the days when the top seeds weren’t in the Armstrong or Heidenfeld! – the game was still reasonably level, albeit that Max’s king was fairly exposed, but he had a counter-attack lined up if Ben slipped up. But in that mutual time trouble, Ben picked up a couple of pawns while still checking, and was three pawns up when Max’s flag unfortunately fell.
Round 2 then will set all the top players against each other, except for Wenle, so the standings after round 2 will be quite revealing! We also likely have one more player joining in to even the numbers up, and there’s three grading prizes to play for. The draw will be up later in the week, with games to take place on 23rd November. The final classified round 1 results were –
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