The Tiger roars to the title

SWEDE Tiger Hillarp-Persson took the title and £1,200 first prize with an impressive win over English international master Robert Bellin on the final day of the festival at the Peninsula. Needing just to draw to keep ahead of the pack, Hillarp-Persson, who missed the first round of matches due to appearing in a Dutch event, made sure against the six times former champion.

In the previous round on Friday, the Swede had drawn with fellow grandmaster, the Russian Epishin, who in the previous round had won against Dutchman Cornelisse, not enough to catch the Tiger but good enough to place second on 5.5 points with Dutchman van der Linde, who beat his fellow countryman, Broek.

Indian Ravikumar had the opportunity to finish in equal second place but drew with Reijneveld (Nether-lands), so both finished equal fourth on five points along with Bolt (England) who beat Van Onzen (Nether-lands) and Prins (Netherlands) who beat Von Salden (Germany).

In joint eighth place was Bellin and eight other players including top Guernsey player and FIDE master Fred Hamperl,who had an excellent finish beating Twitchell (England) to earn a well deserved 4.5 points.

This was no mean feat given Hamperl was often up until the early hours during the week helping to organise the tournament as well.

Fellow organiser Peter Rowe also had an excellent tournament drawing to Spanton (England) to finish on four points, while fellow Sarnians Brookfield, Forbes and Kirby finished on a creditable three points.

Forbes did particularly well, losing only one match in the entire week and drawing six games to give him his formal FIDE rating.

In the holiday tournament, Thompson (England) won from Guernsey’s Seb Nalichowski, Kok, Gibson, Hoogakker and Kearsley, who all finished half-a-point behind.

In the final round, Thompson beat Gibson (France) to take the title and £400 first prize while in the other top matches, Dutchman Hoogakker beat fellow countryman Kok and Kearsley (England) beat Nalichowski, who two rounds earlier had been leading the tournament. As a result Hoogakker and Kearsley came equal second with Baart (Netherlands) and Sivakumar (England) equal third.

Nalichowski was the top Guernsey player finishing with 4.5 points for joint sixth place, an excellent performance.