NEW SEASON KICKS OFF WITH AUTUMN QUICKPLAY

Last week saw the Autumn Quickplay tournament contested. This was well organised by Tony Soames.(Report below)

“ The turnout for the Autumn event was down on last year; only 14 players made it out into the balmy evening. Maybe the new handicap system was seen as too stringent for some, but it worked.

Two tied for first prize with 110 Marc sharing the honours with 156 John-Paul.

Two also tied for third spot with the stalwart Ant and newcomer James sharing the rest of the cash.

There were a number of quick mates but also some long intricate endings that ought to help those involved in the forthcoming season.

As there were so few people the food on offer was too much for even the trenchermen present. Unfortunately this will be binned, as the landlady informed me her dogs are already too fat.”

Thanks to Tony for organising this and thanks to everyone who took part.

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP AND POMEROY CUP

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.

SPRING QUICKPLAY TOURNAMENT

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.