This arose from a series of friendlies organised over the years between North Norfolk's Peter Hodkinson and Chief Knight Alan Holmes, mainly designed to give newcomers and also-rans a run out. We had discussed this particular match a couple of months ago, but it had gone on to my back burner while we finished off the League season. Suddenly, giving less than two week's notice, Peter came up with a challenge to play at the Coachmakers on Thursday 7th June. Miraculously, we came up with a 12-a-side, two rounds of 25 minutes-a-side match, with everybody turning up on time or even early! It seemed that everybody enjoyed the evening from start to finish. Whether this was down to the euphoria of our double promotion season's conclusion, anticipation based on memories of previous similar events, Peter's imaginative pairings, meeting up of so many chess friends or any or all of the above, who knows? Peter (experimenting for a Summer League methinks) had set things up with six teams of four players, two stronger and two weaker in each, which lent itself to six tables of four and Peter's pairings meant nobody got hopelessly outclassed. This meant everybody had both their opponents across the table from them, ensuring a smooth changeover at half-time. It also meant that we had two tables left over for players not involved; Sebastian, Nathan and Sam had their usual brainstorming session, continuing long after the match.
As well as players from St Johns and North Norfolk, Broadland, Wymondham and The new Aylsham club were involved. There was a bit of crossover between home and visiting players for matching purposes, making any overall result irrelevant, but individual scores were as follows:-
Gerry Clayton 0-1 Paul Cox
David Elsey 0-1 Bob Grindrod
Rod Mills 1-0 Heather Wells
Alan Holmes 0-1 Paul Coppard
Phil Sneesby 1-0 Ollie McCoan
Edward King draw Stephen Crane
Ken Ellis draw Tony Parker
Dennis Driscoll draw Ruta Kriksciuniene
Harry McLean draw William Bradley
Richard Downing draw Simon Nichols
John Waite 1-0 John Pearl
Sally Marais 0-1 Jacob Mulligan
Bob 0-1 Gerry
Paul Cox 0-1 David E
Paul Coppard 1-0 Rod
Heather 0-1 Alan
Stephen 0-1 Phil
Ollie 0-1 Edward
Ruta 1-0 Ken
Tony draw Dennis
Simon 0-1 Harry
William 1-0 Richard
Jacob 1-0 John W
John P 0-1 Sally
All in all, a fun evening. Thanks to all who helped with setting up and clearing up and/or subsequently offered kind words. My only regret is that I did not manage to run enough events before to keep a few more more inexperienced newcomers coming along. Hopefully we can change that in the not too distant...
Cheers
Alan
As well as players from St Johns and North Norfolk, Broadland, Wymondham and The new Aylsham club were involved. There was a bit of crossover between home and visiting players for matching purposes, making any overall result irrelevant, but individual scores were as follows:-
Gerry Clayton 0-1 Paul Cox
David Elsey 0-1 Bob Grindrod
Rod Mills 1-0 Heather Wells
Alan Holmes 0-1 Paul Coppard
Phil Sneesby 1-0 Ollie McCoan
Edward King draw Stephen Crane
Ken Ellis draw Tony Parker
Dennis Driscoll draw Ruta Kriksciuniene
Harry McLean draw William Bradley
Richard Downing draw Simon Nichols
John Waite 1-0 John Pearl
Sally Marais 0-1 Jacob Mulligan
Bob 0-1 Gerry
Paul Cox 0-1 David E
Paul Coppard 1-0 Rod
Heather 0-1 Alan
Stephen 0-1 Phil
Ollie 0-1 Edward
Ruta 1-0 Ken
Tony draw Dennis
Simon 0-1 Harry
William 1-0 Richard
Jacob 1-0 John W
John P 0-1 Sally
All in all, a fun evening. Thanks to all who helped with setting up and clearing up and/or subsequently offered kind words. My only regret is that I did not manage to run enough events before to keep a few more more inexperienced newcomers coming along. Hopefully we can change that in the not too distant...
Cheers
Alan
Hi all, a brief – well, better pack a packed lunch before reading just in case – report of tonight’s amazing action follows ...
Near the tail end of the season one expects there to be a drop in attendance for club nights, so it was not unexpected to see only Cap'n Dave Payne at the Coach early doors with boards set up and waiting patiently, beard in hand, for some opposition to arrive.
What was unexpected, as related to this reporter on this night of nights, was that the first and only player to walk into the room prior to 9 in the PM that night was Greek GM Heri Claskins!
With no-one else in attendance, Cap'n Dave bravely took on the GM from abroad who, at 259 in rating, would take some beating and some licking if chess wasn't the order of the day. Luckily Heri suggested some chess and, with a sigh of relief on his somewhat whetted lips, Cap'n Dave agreed to a game.
As the match started there was, reportedly, a little bit of mind games: 'Play the Botvinnik English, my love', said Heri; to which the Welshman replied: 'okay, babycakes'. [Well, what else do you do when a GM walks into the Coachmakers and asks for a specific opening but be thankful it is not the opening one likes to sit on to avoid it being seen by others?]
And then the Greek GM – with a smile on his amazingly attractive, but somewhat Picasso-looking face – went into an anti-English!
If our own bearded educationer was annoyed by the psychology he didn't show it. He played fast and strong and soon had a pawn chain that's tip would leave him two squares from promotion after black's pesky A2 pawn was vanquished. However, it would take some time to get around to that pawn and, apparently, play moved to the kingside after black had forced white's queen to the queenside.
At this juncture white was castled and so was black, but white had doubled rooks and all his army pointed at black's vulnerable F7 pawn. Still, the GM playing the dark pieces didn't bat much of an eyelid [well, at least two of his four eyelids were batted, but that's another story] in going g4 to complicate matters for the in-form form teacher.
Things got complicated fast with our St Johnite in white able to swap and take and push and pull pieces whilst the Greek GM was pretty stymied for movement, but had some nice threats if white forced some issues.
And then white did force some issues!
After a bit of manoeuvring, white had play all over the place the Greek GM, with a whisky and American in one hand and a Corona and lime in the other had nothing and played g5!
This move trapped the Greek’s own bishop on h6, but also white's king. If there had've been anyone watching they certainly would've called black's bishop badder than a badman from Badminton – but no-one was watching and so our Welshman opened things up on the board so wide and so powerfully it looked like curtains for the GM! But curtains for the Greek were not on the railings this night!
After a few nice defending moves against white's incursions, the trapped bishop suddenly came into its own. An inaccuracy by Payne allowed black's bad bish. to nip to f8 and it now had white's entire pawn chain in its sights and began gobbling pawns!
The face of Capn'n Dave Payne dropped. His pawns set up so carefully earlier in the match were vanishing one by one and the Greek GM's own pawns were heading for promotion! What was to be done? What could be done? Well, as our very own Welshman soon admitted it was nothing and he handed the Greek his king.
St John's - 0, Grecians - 1.
Hi all,
Tonight was a fun night at the club with no league games on the cards, but lots of internal competition games raging! I came to a swift victory against Alan in the Ladder towards the beginning of the night, and got to see some of the other games unfold. Of particular note was Harry's Ladder clash with Richard, with another Houdini-like performance from the slippery knight against the crusader in a very sharp King's Indian setup. Vijay and Charlie also came to blows and secured a win each in the Newbie Booby, and Brian resolved his pairing with Oli (although I didn't catch the result, I saw an interesting imbalance with Brian's two pieces for a rook at one stage!)
As the more serious games came to a close the blitz/rapid games continued. I had a rather crazy game in the Sicilian Rossilimo against Crumpton, with pieces tactically hanging all over the place! Many more members joined in the fun and at the very end of the evening Harry and I tested Samuel with some Hand-and-brain games with lots of sacrifices to wrap things up. All in all a great evening and a busy one for the club, hope everyone else enjoyed themselves as much as I did!
Thanks,
Nathan
Dear All.
Below is such an epic report and as Gerry said "The longest report of a chess game for our club" that it deserves to be on the front page rather than on the Knights report page.
Harry has missed his calling as a reporter par excellence,but I am sure Brian as co-editor would agree that Harry should be given his own reportage section on this website from next season.
Read and enjoy!!! Richard
I started with my usual Corona and lime and then with my usual 1. e4 to which my opponent, Alex Evans (112) played the French.
This posed a problem of how I should proceed. Usually I would play the Milner-Barry gambit, but I’d employed that successfully against one Jack (son of Alex) Evans in the Crabs/Knights home match so I was sure the father of the son would be prepared for it. With that in mind, I decided to play the exchange variation, which was the start of my undoing what with my not really knowing what to do in the exchange variation apart from exchange things.
Despite my ignorance, I was pretty happy with the opening few moves and had some nice early build-up with a pin on his knight to queen and on his castled rook pawn to king with me black and white bishops. At this point my opponent was sighing so deeply upon my every move I thought he might actually deflate and we’d have to nip to the seaside tat shop to buy a dinghy-inflation unit just to enable the match to continue, but things were soon to change in his favour.
I could see he could move his queen to a5, pin my c3 Knight to my uncastled king and, what’s more, threaten my black bishop and then go Bg4 to pin my knight to my queen and threaten to force a queen exchange where he would come out of it a 3 point piece up. However, I had drunk my third Corona and worked out a way that I could just exchange queens without any additional loss of white bits – what I didn’t work out, in a typical piece of Hoskinsian idiocy, was what would happen to my pawn structure.
I set up the queen exchange and went for a ciggy. Outside the coastal evening was calm and cool and I chatted briefly with a Crabs player. As I told him I was in trouble it dawned on me that I was in trouble. Yes, I just should’ve castled earlier and avoided the queen exchange, but I didn’t feel too bad about it as I went to the bar and got another bevvie as bars and bevvies have that sort of effect on me.
Back at the board, Alex had played the move and queens were exchanged leaving my queenside pawn structure as messed up as a bouffant hairstyle blown to buggery by the Sheringham seaside breeze. I now had doubled pawns on the A file a square apart with no defence; an isolated pawn on the D file with not much defence; and a king in the middle of the board uncastled. In contrast, my oppo had his king in safety; his pawns connected in two three pawn islands; and his pieces pretty well co-ordinated and threatening to kill me queenside.
Hmmmm, what to do? I took a swig of the golden and looked at the board. My position was as poor as a pauper from poorsville and I reckoned my only hope would be to tighten up and play for the draw. First things first was to castle then ... so I played Kd2.
If there is ever a dictionary with pictorial representations of definitions then Alex Evans’ phizzog upon my going Kd2 would be a good fit to define ‘discombobulated unbelieving incomprehension’. To be fair, I was quite discombobulated myself, why had I played Kd2? A ridiculous move for sure, but a little bit of method behind the madness in that I wanted to give my isolated D pawn some support and use my king as an additional piece in the fight to come – I think I also thought ‘hell, I’ve banjaxed this so lets have some fun’.
I settled down for a defence I knew I had no chance of defending, but, after he had centralised his rooks with pin threats and got his bishop and knight into position to start eating my doubled pawns and marching his up the board, I decided to sod the defending and go on the attack with the most minority of minority attacks (g4 with absolutely no support for it all piece-wise!). I had ideas of a little attack on his king if he didn’t deal with it and focussed on his attack instead. However, I never really had time to push it further in the middle game as he was playing well and kept me busy. On the plus side, being up against it had raised my game from club singer to cruise singer and I made things as tricky as possible for him even though I was lost now about 20 moves in.
He finally started to exchange things to open me up like a fresh fish at a Sheringham fishmongers and I thought about resigning. However, something in me thought ‘I’m a St Johns’ Knight, dagnabbit, and I shall never surrender (and more importantly if I keep playing and can have another couple of beers before home time)’. So play on I did and by about move 40ish things were looking bleak: he had three connected pawns on his kingside to my two; three connected pawns on my queenside to my two and isolated D pawn; my king was on the back rank near the corner; and he had double rooks on the 2nd rank with my rooks uncoordinated with each other having to defend pawns and try and get in check threats when possible.
Surely it was game over? Certainly I thought so but he missed a few moves and I kept on keeping on. He just couldn’t put me away and for some reason (perhaps afeared of a check and my G pawn?) decided not to advance his pawns and, instead, choose to exchange one of his rooks for one of mine. I was still in a lost position, but the rook swap had released pressure on me king and remaining rook so, ignoring his pawn majority I went on the attack (well, more of a raid to hopefully swap some pawns on the kingside so I could then deal with the ones on the queenside).
He pulled his rook back to defend and my king headed a few squares up the board to join the fight. It never got further than the C file though as exchanges had started happening kingside up the board. The result of this was we had a rook each and he now had a totally unopposed pawn on the G file and two connected pawns on A and B files to my one, lonely-looking pawn on the A file. Things had gone from bad to Donald Trump for me and by now a crowd had gathered to watch my demise – surely I would resign now and end then agony as the oppo couldn’t lose?
Well, no resigning from this Knight! Time was getting a bit short with 10 mins on the clock for both of us so I thought I’d play on and see if I could hamper him into a blunder or a loss on time. I think the pressure of the crowd and the clock got to him a bit here – certainly I was doing my best to stymy and slow him, but I’m sure he could’ve just taken my last pawn and had two free pawns on their way to be bequeened.
At this point, I had my rook harrying him and sent my king forward to try and deal with his A and B pawns. This was a mistake on my part and his free G pawn started heading down the board already wearing, I’m sure, a crown on its noggin so sure was it of promotion. We now both had 5 mins on the clock and so I thought ‘I better play quick here and see if I can nick the game on time’ and so promptly went to the bar to get another beer.
Upon my return, the G pawn was even closer to its goal and so I started to bring my king over to stop it. Of course, there was no way he’d allow my monarch to get there, but somehow – with a mix of his play and my rook harrying get there it bloody well did! Still, I wasn’t laughing because surely he would just push his pawns on the A and B file, swap one off for my last pawn and then promote the other which only had two or three squares to go to promotion.
But no, he decided to waste what little time he had and bring his king further in to the fray. This was a mistake. I now had my king behind his G pawn and was threatening his rook which was protected by his king. I had stopped writing moves down at this point (I would’ve given a PGN of the whole match but, as usual, I messed up so much of the notation to render it gibberish) as we now had about 4 mins to go, but he now had two free pawns to my none. However, I had set a little trap (more by accident than design). I had the G pawn covered, and the A pawn sort of covered: if he moved his king in front of his rook at some point I could check and take his rook without him taking back; and if he moved his king back I could check and separate king from rook and take it without fear of losing my own piece.
All he needed to do was move his rook, stick it behind his A pawn, lose his G pawn and then push the A pawn until I had to take it with my rook, losing my rook to his in the process and he was in a won endgame. This is not what happened though. He moved his king back enabling my trap. His face crumpled like a Sheringham seaside charabanc in a nasty prang as he realised he would not only lose his rook, but my position meant his A pawn would go next followed by his G pawn and then it would be an curtains for him in a rook king vs king endgame.
With three mins on the clock he gave me his hand in defeat and I shook it with the theme to The Great Escape ringing in my ears. He promptly departed, knowing he had thrown away the game and I, like a proper gent, waited until he had left the building before giggling in delight at my good luck.
Houdini 1 – Evans – 0
And a nice draw for the Knight too boot with nice play from all in attendance save my badself.
Come on the Knights!
Dear St Johns Chess Club Members,
Knackered, I am, after last night's game with Nathan. What a cracker it was and I am glad to have helped provide some entertainment for onlookers. Nathan's annotation is now with Dave LeMoir for publication in En Passant and Richard, can you put it on the website please?
Elsewhere, Jono and Oli took one win each in their Newbie/Booby match, while the Rapidplay Cup Semi Final between Phil and Nigel went to Mr Larter. He will now face off against David Payne in the final and I, for one, intend to spectate at that encounter, beer in hand.
I was aware of several other games in progress, both in the club-room and downstairs in the bar, but I think they were all friendlies, unless anyone can tell me otherwise. I don't have access to the master tables on my tablet today, and I will revise the Newbie/Boobie table after next Thursday's games. In the other competitions we know where we stand.
Proud to be part of such a vibrant, enthusiastic and successful chess club!
Regards
Brian C
Brian is quite right...it was a joyful chess experience last night. Somebody once said "that chess has the ability to enthral us and take us to sublime places"...I think it was Gerry. We (the onlookers were all taken to sublime places by the incredible game played between Nathan and Brian last night. For the first time in my life I saw an under promotion (the knight of Nathan) and both players played their part in an enthralling game.
Richard PS....My software can not read Nathan's game so I can not put it on the web.
This week the chess club was home to a fierce clash between the knights and the bishops. The battle saw casualties on both sides, with Vijay falling victim to a Fried Liver attack from Harry for the knights and Brian finally succumbing to me in an endgame after a 53-move epic, a completely mental game with bishop sacrifices, dubious pawn pushes and even an underpromotion! I have attached a heavily annotated PGN for anyone interested to enjoy with my thoughts on the game. Boards three and four fought to a standstill, with both agreeing to a draw towards the end of the evening, meaning the match overall was a tie.
I had a great time this evening, hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as me!
Thanks,
Nathan
This weekend St Johns was represented by my badself and Cap'n David Payne at the EACU Closed Championship in Whittlesford, Cambridge. Both those aforementioned fellows competed in a 15 strong U170 section and whilst it is true to say one of them looked pretty at home in that grade band it would be dishonest to state the other didn’t feel completely out his depth. Still, they’d turned up to play and play they damn well did (they had to – after all the tourney was held in the middle of nowhere).
Whilst this reporter can't comment too much on the ins and outs of Cap'n Dave's games, I did see him leave the building with expletives on his lips and Welsh face a-fire at one point. This suggested to me that things hadn't gone well in that particular match or that there had been an incident with the coffee urn and his red-dragooned danglers. What I can comment on in more depth is this reporter’s games: Harry managed to draw his first game against a 154 (though could've won); lose his second game against a 152 (though should've won); draw his third game against a 133 (though should've won); and lose his last game (though might've drawn or won).
The last game – for those who particularly enjoy a bit of Harry-based idiocy – was against a 168 player. After getting crushed for the first 20 moves and then finally getting a bit of counter play due to his opponent missing a small tactic, Harry decided he could knock out the enemy's rook with a sweet move involving an en passant after his opponent played an en passant. Unfortunately for Harry both those moves were to take place on the last ranks of his own half of the board (in other words, an illegal move for Harry trying to en passant an attacking pawn on his own back rank!). Oh well, put that one in the same category as when he tried to make his knight move four to the left and one up in a rapidplay game against Brian 'The Sphinx' Cunningham or when he tried to check Richard ‘The KID’ Downing’s sister’s queen.
But back to the more interesting stuff as important things were a-happening to our other St Johnite: Cap’n Dave Payne – and I don't mean the important couple of swift pints we had at the rather lovely and lovelily-named Tickle Arms in Whittlesford or the interesting Facebook message he sent to a Harry McLean who was not the Harry McLean he thought he was. The important things I speak of were that, despite turning the air blue on the Saturday, Cap'n Dave was in contention to take first place in the U170 and, with one game to go against the only other player who could force him into second, third or no-money fourth place, it was all to play for.
As things progressed and other results came in it became apparent a win would see our boy the singular winner of the group while a loss would see his opponent become the singular winner and, most disconcertingly, put our boy into fourth place and out of the money all-together. Unfortunately for Cap'n Dave his opponent played an altered move order opening, tricking the bearded St Johnite into something he wasn't expecting and putting him on the back foot from the start.
As I watched the game unfold I saw our boy with hardly a piece of off the back rank whilst his oppo threatened all-sorts of nastiness all over the place. However, a St Johns player won't roll over without some damn good Scooby Snacks on offer and so the lad dug his toes in, tightened up and didn't put a foot wrong as far as this reporter could see for the remainder of the game.
With about an hour to go it look so drawish I was sure they would draw - but no, the oppo wanted to win and take the top spot whilst putting the Welshman out of it all together. With about twenty minutes left the other results were in and a draw would've done them both fine - but no, the oppo played on and tried to break down the resilient Cap'n Dave, but he couldn’t beat the rugby player’s defence and possible attacks. Then, finally, the draw was agreed and the final score was in ...
... but what was it?
Joint first place for the lad himself from St Johns! Many congrats to him for a nice tournament and a very well-played last game after being exceedingly up against it.
As for myself, well, I came second (from bottom!) but I felt I played well, my grade only went down a point or so and - coulda/shoulda/woulda - I might've done much better had I not made a small blunder, a mistake, a large blunder, and an illegal move. Either or anyways, it was a damn fine time and some good and bad and downright, on my part, amusing chess was played so what more can one ask for?
Roll on the next tourneys and St Johns participation in them.
Harry 'the hack' Hoskins
Whilst this reporter can't comment too much on the ins and outs of Cap'n Dave's games, I did see him leave the building with expletives on his lips and Welsh face a-fire at one point. This suggested to me that things hadn't gone well in that particular match or that there had been an incident with the coffee urn and his red-dragooned danglers. What I can comment on in more depth is this reporter’s games: Harry managed to draw his first game against a 154 (though could've won); lose his second game against a 152 (though should've won); draw his third game against a 133 (though should've won); and lose his last game (though might've drawn or won).
The last game – for those who particularly enjoy a bit of Harry-based idiocy – was against a 168 player. After getting crushed for the first 20 moves and then finally getting a bit of counter play due to his opponent missing a small tactic, Harry decided he could knock out the enemy's rook with a sweet move involving an en passant after his opponent played an en passant. Unfortunately for Harry both those moves were to take place on the last ranks of his own half of the board (in other words, an illegal move for Harry trying to en passant an attacking pawn on his own back rank!). Oh well, put that one in the same category as when he tried to make his knight move four to the left and one up in a rapidplay game against Brian 'The Sphinx' Cunningham or when he tried to check Richard ‘The KID’ Downing’s sister’s queen.
But back to the more interesting stuff as important things were a-happening to our other St Johnite: Cap’n Dave Payne – and I don't mean the important couple of swift pints we had at the rather lovely and lovelily-named Tickle Arms in Whittlesford or the interesting Facebook message he sent to a Harry McLean who was not the Harry McLean he thought he was. The important things I speak of were that, despite turning the air blue on the Saturday, Cap'n Dave was in contention to take first place in the U170 and, with one game to go against the only other player who could force him into second, third or no-money fourth place, it was all to play for.
As things progressed and other results came in it became apparent a win would see our boy the singular winner of the group while a loss would see his opponent become the singular winner and, most disconcertingly, put our boy into fourth place and out of the money all-together. Unfortunately for Cap'n Dave his opponent played an altered move order opening, tricking the bearded St Johnite into something he wasn't expecting and putting him on the back foot from the start.
As I watched the game unfold I saw our boy with hardly a piece of off the back rank whilst his oppo threatened all-sorts of nastiness all over the place. However, a St Johns player won't roll over without some damn good Scooby Snacks on offer and so the lad dug his toes in, tightened up and didn't put a foot wrong as far as this reporter could see for the remainder of the game.
With about an hour to go it look so drawish I was sure they would draw - but no, the oppo wanted to win and take the top spot whilst putting the Welshman out of it all together. With about twenty minutes left the other results were in and a draw would've done them both fine - but no, the oppo played on and tried to break down the resilient Cap'n Dave, but he couldn’t beat the rugby player’s defence and possible attacks. Then, finally, the draw was agreed and the final score was in ...
... but what was it?
Joint first place for the lad himself from St Johns! Many congrats to him for a nice tournament and a very well-played last game after being exceedingly up against it.
As for myself, well, I came second (from bottom!) but I felt I played well, my grade only went down a point or so and - coulda/shoulda/woulda - I might've done much better had I not made a small blunder, a mistake, a large blunder, and an illegal move. Either or anyways, it was a damn fine time and some good and bad and downright, on my part, amusing chess was played so what more can one ask for?
Roll on the next tourneys and St Johns participation in them.
Harry 'the hack' Hoskins
I thought you might like my news / good fortune.
Harry and I both played in the EACU U170 Championships this weekend.
Harry had some great games but I will let him give the details if he so desires.
I was disappointed with getting a 1 point Bye in the first round but had a graded game v Richard Freeman 174. Although I lost it had been an instructive game where I had drawing chances.
In the second round I played John Daughman 162 and again lost in a close battle. Harry and I adjourned to a local pub - The amusingly named Tickle Arms- to sample a few beverages. Once we were suitasuitably lubricated we returned to the Congess. Harry had taken the Saturday evening bye and I was paired with John Bradley 133 , a seasoned congress goer from Dunmow. I won fairly quickly and went back to the pub and then back to the hotel and another pub. Suffice to say I slept well. After a hearty breakfast I returned to the congess and played Paul Walton 153 - Paul had smashed me in a Rapidplay earlier in the season so I knew it would be a tough game. He played too passively and I got a powerful position and won comfortably.
So into the last round....
Because so many players took a bye in round 3 there was nobody on 4/4 and on fact there were 3 people including myself on 3/4.
I was paired with Julian Ray 163 and had the black pieces. I got myself into a difficult position but managed to hang on for the draw.
The other player on 3 was John Daughman and he lost. Anthony Hall on 2.5 win his game and that meant there was a 4 way tie for first place! We shared the prize money £55 each.
Then I was informed that I had won the trophy/ title on the tiebreaker!!
So I am very proud to be the U170 EACU Champion !!
A very happy bunny indeed. David Payne
.
|
Dear St Johns Chess Club Members,
01/10/2017
Here's another of Richard Downing's very artful photos showing some of the prizes that will be awarded in this season's internal competitions (not the nice chess set though - he gets to keep that!) 
01/10/2017 My Views on the Ladder Tournament A couple of evenings ago,Gerry Clayton asked me my views on how the newly formed Ladder Tournament was going. He,himself opined that it was clearly better to make a quick and successful start in order to climb up the league before the big guns started firing….a blitzkrieg if you like. After returning home I thought about this and realized that Gerry was right, and in my own mad way regarded it as somewhat akin to a large frog pond where at the bottom in the mud and slime lurked the tadpoles fighting tooth and nail to escape to the cleaner,clearer reaches of the upper pond where they could bask in the sunlight,feast on the whatever it is tadpoles feast on and eventually become….a frog. I am a big fan of the Ladder Tournament for quite a few reasons. Firstly it gives the lower-rated players their “time in the sun” In many club tournaments the higher and the lower rated players seldom come to grips with one another,and to have the structure as it is which is having the higher graders start at the bottom and vice versa is not only very exciting,but also beneficial;.they will learn more about tactics,strategy and become used to tough match conditions. It also creates real battle conditions in which both players are either striving to hold their position in the league at all costs or else to storm the ramparts. Imagine the scenario it this was applied to the football league…we would have the Arsenals of this world travelling to such teams as Grimsby,Hartlepool and Ipswich;and if they lost they would forfeit say five points.What fun! I love the colour co-ordination of the groups of players as well, either red for the big guys blue for the middle and green for the rest and the “newbies”. For the better rated players one thing they must overcome is the fear of losing grading points. For example imagine you are a 140 guy and playing a 50.Let’s imagine that you have a moment of madness and lose a piece and then get strangled slowly and lose the game.How many rating points have you thrown away? I know it has happened to me on three occasions in the past and my ratings took a real hammering .Fortunately I am never too bothered by ratings and have taken on all comers and will continue to do so (probably at my peril) but I don’t think I have enjoyed playing in such a fine league for ages, if not ever. I believe this goes for everyone else judging by the attendances at the club of late. Plus the prize of being known as the St Johns Club Champion and getting one’s hands on the lovely “Ritchie Downie” chess clock is too much to turn down;plus prizes for all the colour co-ordinated winners. Looking at the tables now with still a lot of the better players still mired at the bottom it is evident that they will have to win around six on the trot to make it to the top echelon. So that would at best take six Thursdays of hard trench warfare.A month and a half and that is without all the other guys fighting it out as well to prevent it…plus the divisions two and three soon about to start and other matches to contend with.Get cracking!! But to my way of thinking whoever came up with the concept of “The Ladder Tournament” is a genius. Richard Downing 28/09/2017
Here is Richard Downing's superb photo of the chess clock which was a prized possession of our friend and club-mate Ritchie Downie (a.k.a. The Gunslinger) who passed away earlier this year. The clock will be awarded annually to the St Johns Chess Club Champion e.g. the winner of our Ladder Competition. 
|