Alan Merry finished joint second on 5½ points, losing only to the eventual winner, GM Timur Gareyev. Hailing from the USA, Gareyev is the World Blindfold Champion, as reported here a few months ago. He scored 6½ points, with his only draw being in the second round against David Spence.
Ed Player scored five points to finish joint fourth, but all his opponents were lower-rated, probably because he had lost his Round 2 match. David Spence finished on 4½ points, whilst Alex Sheerin (who took a couple of ½-point byes on Sunday) scored 2½ points.
Alan Merry's last round win was strange. The live feed shows Alan winning in a drawn position. His opponent, Matthew Wadsworth (White) is to play in the following position.
With only one possible move, it would seem unlikely that Matthew lost on time, although both players were down to a minute or so. Perhaps the game continued longer, but the live feed stopped for some reason? The position is theoretically drawn, but of course Matthew may have blundered somewhere. Perhaps Alan, or Ed or David will explain what happened...
Speculation in the English Chess Forum is that white perhaps thought that Bc6 wins after Ra3, overlooking that the K can now go to b3.
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