Aagaard’s tournament

Speelman on Chess
Jonathan Speelman
Sunday August 19, 2007
The Observer

Many congratulations to the new British Champion: the Danish born Scottish IM Jacob Aagaard, who battled his way to tournament victory in Great Yarmouth last Friday, with the characteristically messy win as Black against Glenn Flear, below.

I left you last week with just that final round of the British to be played and everything up in the air, as Aagaard shared the lead with Stephen Gordon – to whom he’d just lost as White – ahead of six players on 7. Almost anything could have happened depending on the top six or seven boards. But in the event Aagaard completed an utterly topsy-turvy week, in which he’d won both his Blacks but lost both his Whites with the possibly “lucky” but certainly gritty win against Flear. Meanwhile a big battle between Gorden and Tony Kosten finished in a draw, Mark Hebden and Stewart Haslinger fought each other to a standstill and the defending champion Jonathan Rowson and David Howell moved up at the expense of Nick Pert and Simon Williams respectively.

There are tournaments in which you feel that a player really “deserves” to win and after his great first week and his brilliant recoveries from his two second week losses (to Haslinger and then Gordon) I did think that it was Aagaard’s tournament. He finished on 8.5/11 ahead of Gordon and Rowson 8; Haslinger, Kosten, Hebden and Howell 7.5. Seven players were next on 7 including Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant and the Edinburgh based Arakhamia-Grant (who is married to a Scot but continues to represent Georgia internationally) retained her title of British Ladies Champion.

Here is the full article.