Staunton Memorial final Rd. 11: Mickey takes the gold!
Mickey Adams won the Staunton Memorial with 8/11 as he drew with Loek Van Wely in the last round. Van Wely could have caught him with a win but chose a quiet line against Adams' Moscow Sicilian and settled for second place. Jan Smeets took third after defeating Cherniaev to finish on 7, while Jan Timman split the point with Wells to finish with 6.5. Edwin L'Ami got his 6 points by beating Bob Wade with a pretty rook sacrifice on f2. Ivan Sokolov held on against Speelman ending up with 6, while Speelman tied with Werle on 5.5. Peter Wells settled for 5, while Cherniaev only managed 3.5. Veteran Bob Wade tried hard, but his experience at 87 years of age didn't bring him any points.
Best game prizes went to Jan Werle for his win over Peter Wells and Jan Smeets for his demolition of Short. They split the cash prize while Werle was awarded a modern chess set valued at over $1500.
Adams took home the top prizde of 2500 pounds, as well as a framed print by Barry Martin and the "lucky pawn". This simple plastic pawn was used because the Staunton wooden sets for the tournament arrived missing a pawn. So a regular plastic pawn was placed on the boards of one of the habitually late players (Sokolov and Wells) until an exchange took place.
After the event I finally dared to try one of Simpson's original chess cocktails, the Czech Mate consisting of Absolute Mandarin, cherry liquer and Absinthe over ice. This and a bit of champagne sufficed until the sumptuous closing banquet which featured a veritable lake of wine accompanying a meal of chicken, spinach, potatoes and one of Simpson's famous desserts. Prizes were awarded after dessert but before coffee and sweets. A good time was had by all.
Next year the Staunton is expected to be an all-GM event with 6 Dutch players and 6 Brits, combining a round-robin with a team event as a new tradition at Simpson's. We expect to have openings for demo board operators and assistants for live game transmission. So those of you in the London area will be able to take part in the festivites (and the feasts!).
Final round games:
