7th Gibtelecom Chess Festival 2009

Born in 1970, Gary Quillan from Merseyside (pictured left below) is a very experienced and popular member of the English chess scene. He has been the strongest untitled player in the country for some time now (he could become an FM any time he likes, of course, having a rating well in excess of 2300); he has a couple of IM norms to his name.

Gary plays for Waterloo Chess Club who compete in division 2 of the MCA League. At the 2007 UK vs China match in Liverpool, there was an entertaining photo-shoot set up with Gary and England no.1 Mickey Adams, which mimicked a similar photo of the two of them which had been published in a UK newspaper 25 years earlier when the two of them had been playing in the National Primary Schools Championship - click here to see the 1982 and 2007 photos (navigate to the bottom of the page). Neither of them has changed a bit!

Round one
On top board, first out of the hat Gary (2357) played GM Vugar Gashimov who outrated him by nearly 400 points.

Quillan,Gary (2357) - Gashimov,Vugar (2723) [A00]
Gibtelecom Masters Gibraltar (1.1), 27.01.2009
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.c3 Bg7 4.d4 cxd4 5.cxd4 d5 6.exd5 Nf6 7.Nc3 0-0 8.Bc4 Nbd7 9.0-0 Nb6 10.Bb3 Nfxd5 11.Re1 Be6 12.Bg5 Re8 13.h3 Nc7 14.Bf4 Ncd5 15.Be5 Nxc3 16.bxc3 Bd5 17.Bxg7 Kxg7 18.Ne5 Rc8 19.Qd2 Rc7 20.Ng4 Qd6 21.Re5 Rec8 22.Rae1 h5 23.Qh6+ Kg8

Gary pondered a while and then played the crushing 24.Re6!! hxg4 25.Rxd6 exd6 26.hxg4 Bxb3 27.axb3 Rxc3

So, how does White win this position? Stuart Conquest, commenting on the game in Gibraltar, found the winning idea of 28.g3!! followed by Kg2, Rg1 and Black is lost as he is unable to defend the mating threat. Unfortunately, Gary was unable to find this move and instead played 28.Re3. Now the game continued 28...Nd5 29.Rxc3 Nxc3 30.Kf1 a5 31.f4 d5 32.f5 Rc6 33.Qf4 Ne4 34.Qb8+ Kg7 35.Qxb7 Rc1+ 36.Ke2 Rc2+ 37.Ke3 Rc3+ 38.Ke2 [Fritz prefers 38.Kf4 here but after g5+ 39.Ke5 Nf6 it's difficult to see how white can make progress] Rc2+ 39.Ke3 Rc3+ 40.Ke2 draw.

References:
John Saunders - 'Who's who' Gibraltar website
Chessbase article - 28 Jan 2009
Game annotations by FM Steve Giddins