Sunday the 16th of December 2018 and I'm up before midday. This either means I haven't been to bed or there’s a chess tournament to be played. Today it’s the latter and the tourney in question is the annual Don's Xmas Allegro: an ungraded, for fun, 30 minute rapidplay involving Xmas jumpers, round prizes for best and worst moves, Xmas[ish] tunes and general festive fun. Almost on time for a 9.20 lift, I jumped into The Delsey Mobile to head to the venue and was immediately struck by its driver’s Xmas jumperedness. Surely it was too much? Surely there should be laws against this sort of sartorial abomination? Surely no-one else would dare to join the Delse, or even surpass him, in his commitment to the Yuletide garb? Five minutes later, we picked up Cap'n Dave Payne: Spot the queen The drive to the venue, the Gas Club just past the popular Mousehold Heath, was, I don't mind declaring, a hellish phantasmagoria of too-early in the morning Xmas outfits only tempered by the loveliness of the company in the car. And so it was almost a relief to get out of the automobile on arrival, roll and then one-drag drain a ciggy, say hello to the other St Johnite in attendance, Crumpton Clarke, and head into the tourney in a state of resignation to see who I had in the first round. The reason for my resignation was that in the 2017 Allegro I had been paired with the mighty Andrew Brett in round one. This year things were to be different and so it was with a certain relief that I processed organiser John Dolamore’s statement that the first round would be paired to give more equal matches. Naturally, my relief was short-lived for I’d drawn, horror of horrors, none other than David Elsey with the black bits: a St John's grudge match at 10 in the AM against The Delse? Not what this reporter needed – though often what he dreams of as being able to sit so close to The Delsey without it seeming odd is indubitably a recurring dream of his. At the board, The Delsey gave it his English and, on something like move 8 I proceed to hang my rook and put up my hand to let prize-adjudicator, Mike Reid, know I was surely in contention for the worst move prize with nary 5 minutes of the tourney gone. Still, going down the exchange wasn't as bad as suffering the pure pleasure displayed on The Delsey's phizzog at my idiocy; worse than this though was I was down materially and now had a terrible position to boot. Not much to be done other than to work my cleverness (for cleverness see lucky desperation) and Houdini my way out of things. And with that – after not one or two but three of our wind-up chess clocks had stopped working on us – I sacked my A pawn to open a file to his king, pushed some pawns and saw my killer sequence somewhere down the line. What with it being an unrated and for fun match, I didn’t feel too bad about getting up and telling Cap’n Dave Payne exactly how I was going to win The Delsey’s queen and the match five moves hence before sitting back down at the board and five moves later winning The Desley’s queen and the match. Lovely! Better than the win though was that I won the prize for worst move and best move sequence win in one match – double lovely! Round two and I think I had Jonathon 'William' Burrows (159) and the supportive words of Cap’n Dave Payne: ‘he’s really good!’ in my ears as I opened with 1.e4. The game went into a sort of Scotch Four Knights in which the C and E files opened and I took control of E with bishop and king and C with doubled rooks. Although I had the best of the torture, it looked like it would be deadlock and so I offered the draw, but perhaps knowing he massively outgraded me, my oppo declined and I thought bollox to this, let's make him regret that! And make him regret it I did for most of the rest of the game, having all the play until the endgame when, in time trouble, I first missed a hanging black rook (much to the watching Crumpton's annoyance!), and then allowed a knight fork which finished me off. At that moment my oppo let out an audible 'phew' and told me I'd been all over him and he'd been lucky to win, which made me feel a little better for less than a little bit. The pre-lunchtime round saw a St John's double header with Crumpton 'The Laugh' Clarke taking a seat opposite me. I don't mind admitting I was nervous facing off against the very solid Crumps and, as he went into his Cunningham-inspired 1. d4 opening, I was hard pressed not to sit there slack-jawed at his loveliness. Still, I managed to get a hold of myself and, after doing that, I concentrated on things above the board and we got into a helluva interesting position. Most of the time I find play is usually very tactically rich for one player whilst the other is in a barren tactical landscape - but not here! With a fight over the e file going on there were tactics aplenty for both of us and we jiggled about trying to get the better of things before implementing our tactical strikes. In the end it was The Crumps who relieved the pressure, going down the exchange to open things up. However, although things had eased, there were now tactical mating threats for both of us! Unfortunately for me, Crumps had more room for manoeuvre and entered my area with a smile of satisfaction and then actually moved a piece on the board – his queen – to my back rank with check. It was a sticky situation: he had the checks and the mate threats, but I had the mate threats too if he gave me a single move to start things rolling. What was to be done? Well, we danced for a while, he bought me dinner, and we first decided to name our soon-to-be-conceived baby Crumarry before second agreeing a draw that I was pretty happy to take at the end of a great game. Lunchtime came and went with fish and chips for some, pie and chips for others, and, for everyone in a two mile radius, Johnny Danger's endearingly deafening and varying in pitch anecdotal explosions about the Grob and its exponents. Round four saw me on 1 and a half and drawn against a guy called 'Saint' Nick who hadn't played for a while but used to be, I believe, a 160. I had the white plastic and he the Santa hat as pictured below: Man in white jumper wins the spot the man in the santa hat competition Again it was the Scotch Four Knights and it went to yer standard opposite side castled caveman pawn push game of which Dave Knave would’ve been proud. Unfortunately for me, I miscalculated who would get serious pressure first and got myself in a pickle. I sacked a bishop to trap his own and then realised he had a way out of that and so avoided my planned queen and rook exchange only to get myself further pickled. With almost everything lost, I then threatened his queen with an unprotected rook when he threatened my own with his bishop. It was a good plan until he found some checks to leave everything of mine hanging and nothing left for me to do but hand him my king. Oh well, on to the next one. The penultimate round saw me against - and I think this is right - John 'The River' Hudson (113), but more importantly saw me playing black with chocolates instead of pawns! The idea was one could eat a pawn when taken, but the reality was it was an odd-looking game indeed in which my position seemed extremely open due to the chocolates being a good inch or two shorter than the pawns they replaced. The opening came and went and my oppo sacked a bishop and a knight and a bishop for my rook and three pawns. It didn’t seem enough to me as I had lots of pressure in exchange and his queenside knight and rook would be hard pressed to get into the game. With this in mind, I sacked a bishop to open up his castled king and now had mate threats. Only his pesky queen stood in the way and, with prize-arbitrator Mike Reid behind me, I calculated a lovely forced sequence in which I would eventually threaten his queen with an unprotected bishop to get it out of the way for mating threats. Sadly, and rather obviously with this being me playing the game, it all went to plan but I totally forgot (for forgot see missed) the fact that when his queen moved to its last "safe" square I could take it due to a pin! Still, even with this oversight, I won the game a few moves later and picked up the a second prize for best sequence of the round in which a player forgot to take a hanging queen! Whilst I’d been playing, St John’s very own Crumpton and Delsey had been facing off – as with much of this report I can’t comment on the game as rapidplay conditions don’t give one much time away from the board, but I can post a picture of said match and leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the result: Who will win the battle of the party hats? Final round and, oh no!, it was my bogeyman Johnny ''D4" Danger and he had white. I'm still yet to work out what to do against the Stonewall attack (will learn the lines over Xmas) and went a bit crazy over the board. Suffice to say The Danger Man won the prize for the quickest win that round and I left the board suitably chastened and not a little chaffed, but smiling coz it was all for fun and had, despite some seriously tenuous Xmas music [The Final Countdown by Europe FFS!], been a seriously fun and relaxed event in which the joy of playing had trumped results and the like for most of us. Still, it would be remiss of me not to mention the results I know of fellow St Jonites: The Delsey: 1W 3D 2L Cap’n Dave Payne: Beat Crumpton. Graham Blowers and Johnny D and lost to Dave Hall, Andrew Brett and Phil Bonafont. The Crumpton Report: My first game was against David Payne, who quite early on tied my pieces down without threatening too much. However, his pressure eventually came to bear and he took the win. Round two was against Heather Wells who had the white pieces. I missed an inadequately defended central piece but was able to gang up on it and tool it a few moves later. I gradually improved my position, and chased Heather’s king at my end of the board where I administered the coup de grace. Next up was [Harry] and I cannot add to your wonderful report. After a fish and chip & beer lunch was David Elsey, who had white. David gained a pawn advantage and after a bit of trading, offered a draw which I accepted. We played through the game which saw us both queening pawns. David’s got there first but bizarrely was unable to check my king as 3 possible checks were covered by my knight and the other by my queen. But that’s all by the by as the game was a draw. I played Nick Gorvin who had white. My pawns had been taken away and replaced with chocolates. Nick had the better of the game and managed to be up a rook and pawn to a bishop. Luckily he was unbale to bring his 2nd rook into the fray and I was just able to stop and grab his pawn on the 7th rank and a draw was agreed. I had also managed to retain 5 of my chocolates on the board so got to eat them. Last up was Steve Wood who beat me fairly comfortably. A good day Crumpton As for the winner, a pretty impressive six from six against stiff competition for Andrew Brett enabling him to take the shield and look suitable happy with his performance. The Brettster accepting the shield from Mike Reid after kicking arse and taking names And that, my friends, is about all the news that's fit to print. Hope to see some fellow St Johnites at the upcoming Norfolk Rapidplay in late January 2019 (really good tourney that one is with Open, U140 and U100 sections also held at the Gas Works in Norwich just North of the ever-popular Mousehold Heath). Ciao for now. Harry
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