Di Wu 4d of Durham, England triumphed over 24 other players in the Scottish Open tournament on May 25-26, winning his games in all six rounds. The runner-up, with five wins, was Scottish Champion David Lee 3d, of Dundee, Scotland. Jurriaan Dijkman 4k, of Skye, Scotland took third place.
Gary Craig 15k of Glasgow, Scotland also won five games and Martin Harvey 5k of Manchester, England, Greg Cox 10k of Dundee, Scotland and Carol Goodheir 11k of Skye all won four.
The tournament originated as the Edinburgh tournament in 1981. The Scottish Open later moved to Glasgow, Aberdeen and then Dundee, before returning to Glasgow this year – 14 years after it was last held there. The event took place at Glasgow University’s Gilchrist Postgraduate Club. Six players who arrived early, on Friday evening, played simultaneous games against Di Wu.
Sadly, Boris Mitrovic 2k*, a resident of Edinburgh, Scotland (although Serbian by birth), was unable to play in the Scottish Open, as he was busy in London, challenging for the British Championship (see E-J of May 28). He said: “I think it’s unfortunate the Scottish Open collided with this tournament, as there are very few go tournaments one can play which are near Edinburgh. If they didn’t collide I’d play in both”.
Ironically, as reported in the E-J of May 10, the Candidates Tournament, from which Mitrovic qualified for the Challengers’ League, was held in his home town in order to encourage more Scottish players to enter for the Championship.
As the Bard of Scotland, Rabbie Burns, put it: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft a-gley**”
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-Tony Collman. Compiled from material on the BGA’s website and sources.
* This rating was given after Mitrovic played in mainland Europe (Poland) last year, where there is a discrepancy with British grades. As his performance at the Challengers’ League demonstrates, he is well able to play at least to the standard of his BGA Shodan certificate.
** often go awry
