Eventual winner Nick Pert (rear right) thinks through a move against Tiger Hillarp-Persson. In the foreground, Robert Bellin (left) and Vladimir Schveshnikov do battle. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 1042887)

AFTER seven rounds and hours of mind-crunching the 36th Intertrust Guernsey International Chess Festival ended in an unprecedented three-way tie.

But as the trio of grandmasters in the field each left the Peninsula Hotel £700 better off for their week’s work it was event debutant, the English grandmaster Nick Pert, who took home the open trophy by virtue of his marginally better countback score.

On the final day grandmasters Pert and Evgeny Schveshnikov had fought out a draw on the top board, while Tiger Hillarp-Persson overcame his own talented student, Wolfgang Mack, to pull level with his fellow grandmasters.

The charismatic Swede’s win was not the only victory of master over pupil on the day, as FIDE master Fred Hamperl was defeated by his long-time teacher, international master Robert Bellin.

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