It was a cold, foggy evening for the Christmas Rapidplay tournament. Tony Soames had taken time out to celebrate his wife’s birthday and I (Denzil) was tasked with running this tournament.
Patrick struggled in, hitting the curb and damaging his tyre, whilst Tony Lane failed to make it. Several others were foiled by the poor weather
We ended up with a healthy 14 competitors. A buffet was provided and there was plenty for everyone.
After round two we had four people leading the pack, Phil Cattermole ,Joachim Trier , Nick Evans and Geoff Laurence.
In round three Phil beat Joachim and Geoff drew with Nick giving Phil the lead going into round 4 .
We briefly had a puzzle board for two rounds for competitors to entertain but Patrick decided to commandeer this board for his games although there were two other free boards available.
Round 4 saw Nick Beat Phil and Joachim beat Geoff opening thing up. Nick now led the field with Joachim and Phil in close second.
The final had real drama
Adrian and Patrick didn’t start their clocks
Alan made an illegal move an Francis gained a minute
Phil beat Tony Brough to end up on a winning 4 points
Joachim beat reckless Nick (who lost a piece without noticing) ending up on 4 points , leaving Nick having to settle third with 3.5 points
Geoff and Phil Colville (both on 2.5 points after 4 rounds and both could have tied for third place with a win) –drew
In eventful tournament which was played in the right spirit.
However there were times when Players were frantically pressing the clock and moving pieces. Things got so bad that pieces were knocked over and players lost track of what was happening. Strictly speaking, players are required to move and press the clock with the same hand and players should adopt this practice to avoid the uncontrolled frantic finishes
Result
=1st Phil Cattermole 4
=1stJoachim Trier 4
3rd Nick Evans 3.5
`The roses have faded, there’s frost at my door, the birds in the morning don’t sing anymore`.
Macc C `borrowed` a couple of players from the not-so-forbidden tree and were able to stop the haemorrhaging of points from the top order. Unfortunately this couldn’t stop the hybrid team from being unceremoniously dumped out of the Presidents Cup at Marple. First up was Marc being Marc thrusting his pawns onwards with lines so sharp it was like watching a laser cut through butter. David P was having none of it though and when the debris was checked it looked to be all things equal until Marc blundered a piece 0-1. On my other side, an equalising blunder by Alan and his dancing horses allowing Denzil a bishop fork of Queen and King (when will someone gift me a game)? 1-1. Next to be ground down was Tom on board 5, beaten by Chris, a consistent player 34 grading points higher. Tom will return to winning ways soon of that I am certain. We now needed 1 ½ points to progress by board elimination. Ant was holding firm with the black pieces against Paul on top board whilst Man with Hat was not. I had made a complete hash of the opening (AGAIN)! On the plus side, MWH had shown resourcefulness a plenty in order to be last man standing. It’s a very lonely place to be surrounded by the baying mob and this was Man with Hat’s second successive year at this venue trying in vain for a win that was only ever achievable theoretically. A stylish finish from MWH as he pirouettes off his chair knocking all of the remaining pieces over. Just time to find my King, pick it up again to put it down before congratulating my opponent Andy on his worthy victory.
I can hear the dulcet tones of Mrs Hat `Get over it`!
Man with Hat’s reputation is now in tatters, his job is hanging by a thread and his dreams of becoming BBC Sports Personality of the Year lie buried in the Wilmslow quick-sands. On an Autumnal evening at the Royal British Legion, Macclesfield C slumped to their second consecutive defeat of biblical proportions.
The KoolKat and I had been working tirelessly throughout the night to assemble 2 teams for trips to Fenton and Wilmslow respectively. I didn’t actually get up until after I had gone to bed.
Board 2, Man with Hat v Richard. 12 moves in and it’s a howler from MWH. I allow my opponent to step up pressure on the B1 – H7 diagonal whilst indirectly attacking my knight and directly attacking my bishop. Sometimes in chess you can make such a bad move that your opponent thinks you’re an idiot and subconsciously they might make lazy and implicitly weaker moves that give you a microscopic ray of hope. This wasn’t one of those occasions. Somewhat petulantly I play on until Tom arrives from Board 6 to fess up to his loss to Robin. Not being the first to lose means that I can now resign 0-2. Joachim is not far behind, his opponent Kevin has set his stall out and is waiting for Joachim to make an error, which he does. The white pieces fall like a bad turn at Jenga and Kevin puts Joachim out of his misery when he forces the ladies off the board. 0-3 and 3 boards to go. I almost miss this, Pete offers a Rook sacrifice to David B. Nope, I can’t see it and neither can anyone else as the ex- East Cheshire man gleefully snaffles the Rook and a resignation follows 0-4. Our Richard has a good position and is now a pawn up in a Rook and Pawn ending. However, with 7 minutes on the clock and no increments available he offers a draw and Mike readily accepts. Just Marc left and he has now run out of time and ideas against Colin and now his Knight is trapped. 5½ - ½ but no whitewash.
Heavily outgraded on the top 4, there were no individual scores that couldn’t be predicted but collectively a bad day at the office. A break from league chess for the C team and the next match will be a Presidents Cup tie providing a nice, relaxing sojourn in Marple before one fixture at Altrincham and then the Xmas break.
Congratulations to MC Colin and his Wilmslow team for a well-deserved win.
Thanks to all those who answered the call and a special thanks to Richard who played with less than 24 hours notice. I’m off to see my therapist whilst Mrs Hat mutters something like ‘For God’s sake it’s only a game’. She just doesn’t get it, does she?