High speed chess

I dropped in at the Maynard Sinclair Pavilion towards the end of the 3rd NICS Rapidplay and was witness to some high velocity activity. Hoping to take some photographs of the beginning of the final round, I had positioned myself beside the top boards. Immediately after my first attempt, I heard Adrian Dornford Smith say sorry to me for having moved across my sightline. He kindly posed for a close-up to make amends.

However when I checked the "spoiled" pic, there was no sign of Adrian, just a very blurry image. Has Adrian discovered how to move faster than the speed of light? Unlike Adrian, physics is not my strong point but I seem to remember there was once a theory that if you ran backwards sufficiently quickly you could travel back in time. It appears fast-draw Ferguson has been working on this.

Here Drew (spot his speedy right hand) is just completing his journey backwards in time to a point where Ian Woodfield has played his first move but is yet to press his clock. Meanwhile Paul Anderson and Mike Redman are trying to work out what has just happened with their clock display.

Anyway, back to a more conventional report: top seed Redman put in a blitzkrieg of his own on his six opponents to finish with a 100% score. Here's the final standings direct from the Controller's laptop (BTW Mark, ever thought of cleaning the screen?)

Click on the photos to get full-size images