Ayr Congress 2024: Report by Iain Sneddon
Ayr Congress 2024
A personal report by Iain Sneddon
Castlehill had 5 representatives at the recent Scottish Chess Tour event in Ayr, 13th-15th September (Rishi Vijayakumar , Andre Babin and me in the Open and Colin Young and Steven Thomson in the Major). As always the event was well organised by Dave Clayton and John McNicoll.
In the Open Rishi was top seed and was in contention for a good placing until an unfortunate loss in Rd4 to IM Roddy McKay, eventually finishing on 3/5. The star of the show was Andre who had some solid results before his tremendous win in Rd5 against FM Phil Giulian moved him up to 6th with 3.5/5 and tournament rating of 2137.
In the Major Colin was very solid and finished on 2.5/5, heavily out graded in most rounds and Steve struggled a little bit, like myself, finishing on 1.5/5. Both sections were extremely competitive and hard fought as most of the SCT competitions are.
Four of us had travelled down on Saturday morning and stayed overnight in the hotel for Sunday’s games (a case of Ayr today and gone tomorrow, boom, boom!) though 2 hour drive is not the best way to prepare for a day’s chess. The hotel was ok, a bit pricey for the standard I thought, I’m sure there are other options but it seemed most convenient initially. The meal was ok and we were assured good service as we were 1 of only 2 tables eating in the restaurant, maybe we should have followed Andre’s advice and headed out for the Chinese place he saw.
We did get to experience pool table yoga though. The table was placed in such a small area that just about any shots across the table required major contortions to get the cue into reasonable contact with the white. Suffice to say that the more agile Mr Babin defeated Colin and I, nothing to do with his better playing ability of course! Then we were treated to some woman screaming the place down at 2.30 in the morning. I know it affected Andre as well as me, however as Colin was staying on the Penthouse level he wasn’t bothered by such trivialities.so I’m not a fan of the hotel but the company was fantastic.
Report by Iain Sneddon