The club’s standard time limit competitions started in September 2017 and finished in May 2018.
In the club championship (CC) there were 42 games in the preliminary all-play-all leagues: 37 were wins, four were draws plus one win by default. There were four wins in the semifinals. The final had one win and one draw.
In the Pomeroy cup (PC) there were 20 games scheduled for the preliminary all-play-all leagues: 17 were wins and there was one draw. Two games were not played because playing them would not have affected the semifinal qualifiers. There were four wins in the semifinals. The final had two draws. Two wins in the rapid play games followed to produce the PC winner.
To avoid bias, players were allocated to the preliminary leagues randomly but this did result in some imbalance between the pairs of groups. The average grades (using January 2018 grades) were: CC group A 119, CC group B 145, PC group A 99, PC group B 116.
Before the competitions started, extensive consultations were made about how they should be organised. Consequently, during the season, most were generally happy with the way things were run but there were some adverse comments. The main one of these was that there were too many games.
Club members were allowed to enter both the CC and the PC and for those who chose to do so this added to the ‘workload’. Well done to Phil (Colville) and Denzil who completed 16 and 15 standard time limit games and four and two rapid play games respectively.
So many games were tiring for many competitors and fitting club games in on available club nights caused problems. Also team captains occasionally found that would-be team members were unavailable because of the internal club competitions. Phil Colville suggested that in future players should not be allowed to enter both CC and PC.
Whoever organises next season’s competitions might bear the players' comments in mind.
In conclusion thanks to all the club members who took part in the club’s competitions, helping me by playing their games as soon as they could and sending in their results promptly.
The last week of the season saw the Spring Rapid tournament contested.This was well organised by Tony Soames.
The Spring Rapid Play was well attended and food was provided to aid the competitors.There were also a few puzzles to keep everyone entertained between rounds.
Robert was a great sport and accepted his inflated grading consequent to his 5/5 score in the Autumn fixture. This time he had Kieren to play and in an exciting game he suffered a rare defeat. Kieren came through undefeated and took first place with five points despite only having three minutes on his clock to begin with at least once. Second and third place were taken by Robert and Phil Cattermole.
The ambition for the handicap system is for everyone to have a chance of winning. This never happens and so Tony gave two prizes for the most valiant losers and Adrian and Patrick were the popular winners of these prizes.
Over the whole season Robert took the top spot from the best of two and so wins the Pollard Cup again. In second place was Phil Cattermole and in joint third were Phil Colville and Francis. Twenty-two players took part over the whole season and ten played in all three competitions.
Thanks to Tony for organising this and thanks to everyone who took part.
Drinking in the Queens Hotel, so many people deflated,
News had just come over, Macclesfield C had been relegated,
Man with Hat had told us,
He cried so much his face was wet,
We knew we'd been checkmated.
Despite some late fireworks from Joachim, Macc C failed to secure a point that would have seen their relegation struggle go right down to the wire for a second consecutive season.
For the record, Man with Hat led from the back and was, for once, playing a lower-graded player. However, I couldn’t break through and was getting increasingly frustrated and behind on the clock before Steve made a fatal mistake. On board 5 Pete had already drawn with the potential banana skin that is Vijay. I was still playing and could not afford the time to wander to the other side of the room until my win was confirmed. Even from a distance the body language did not look good and Man with Hat was to quickly learn that his beefed up team was now 1½ - 2½ down with the KoolKat unable to come back from a poor start against Mark W and Denzil beaten by David N on boards 1 + 3 respectively. Time for Joachim to add to his tally with breath taking combinations to prise Bill’s queen away from its guards 2½ - 2½. Ant looked to have lost the deciding game with Reg just needing to finish off a king and pawn endgame with a pawn advantage. I then noticed Reg’s clock was showing 19 seconds. Would this be enough time pressure to induce a mistake at the midnight hour and see the team cling on for another day? Well, you live by the increments and you die by the increments and Reg finished with aplomb.
As Ant’s king was laid down to rest, the fickle finger of fate was pointed, the death knell rang and man and boy openly wept in the street. Lights were lowered around the globe, the horsemen of the apocalypse were briefly seen through a thunderstorm of biblical proportions and hell froze over. Mrs Hat continued to crochet.
A big thank you to all those who played this season and Man with Hat looks forward to the club rapidplay on 21st May. See you all there!