CASTLEHILL RANDOM KNOCKOUT 2020-21 – FINAL!
Final – Mon 26th July 21 – 6pm – Lichess
Time=Control: 45 minutes + 15 seconds increments
Miguel Angel Prieto Alvarez (1800) 0 – 1 André Babin (1883)
Congratulations to André Babin on winning his first ever Castlehill Random Knockout title after a very close battle against Miguel Alvarez in the final!
André won on time in what looked like a very drawn ending. Yes I think most players watching thought a draw would be agreed and a 10 minute tie-break game was going to be played, but time just ran out for Miguel in the end!
The match was a good battle between equally matched players, but Miguel seemed to have the better of it in the early skirmishes. Indeed Miguel missed the opportunity to secure a big, big advantage on move 27 when he played the good looking 27.Ra1, attacking André’s knight and also defending his “a” pawn for the push to promotion at the same time!
The better and winning move was 27.Bb7!! Not easy to see in the heat of battle! Andre made sure he did not get another chance to play it!
The ending was the fight between the Bishop pair of Miguel’s and the Bishop and Knight of André. There were a lot of end game inaccuracies as you would expect in such a tight and tense match which to be honest could have gone either way! In the end it looked like both players had settled for the draw and a 10 minute tie-break game, but somehow neither player seemed willing to offer the draw and as both their clocks ticked down, it was Miguel who lost track of time and that was the “end of time” for Miguel! At the time I was watching the match a Cher song was playing, “If I could turn back time”, nothing else to say after that Miguel!
Well played both players in reaching the final and once again congratulations to Andre on winning the final!
Thank you to everybody who took part in this competition and hopefully we will be back playing this OTB the next time!
For all the results and the full final game click the link below.