Our annual club championship took place over the past two Tuesdays, 3 rounds on the 13th and 2 rounds on the 20th. The format is 25 minutes each +/- a time handicap depending on ratings. 14 players took part.
Round 1 saw no surprises as all the higher rated players won. Round 2 was totally different as Charlie beat Peter G-M, Jack beat Paul and Andy beat Felipe who was probably exhausted from his excellent performance at the Nottingham Congress the previous weekend.
In round 3 Mike N-E beat Charlie to share the lead with Florian who recovered from a poor start to win after poor defence by Drag. Jack continued his fine form with a win over Andy to join Vinod, Drag, Charlie and Nikolai on 2 points.
Round 4 saw the clash of the first team giants, Florian v Mike N-E. The game progressed much as expected with Florian launching a king side attack but running low on time as usual. Mike defended carefully and managed to beat Florian. Meanwhile, Drag carelessly dropped his queen against Jack, but managed to win it back and, while still material down, he managed to outplay Jack in the end game. Charlie had another good game, drawing with Vinod, and Nikolai’s championship hopes came to an end with a loss to Peter G-M.
In round 5 Florian beat Charlie to finish on 4 points and now he needed Drag to beat Mike to force a 3 way play off. After a decent opening Mike allowed Drag to gain a winning position in the middle game but hung on grimly and his efforts were rewarded with a couple of inaccuracies by Drag that allowed Mike to equalise and then win Drag’s bishop and the game.
Congratulations to Mike on becoming the club champion for the second time following his first in 2021-22.
Final scores:-
5:- Michael Naylor-Eade
4:- Florian Biermann
3:- Drag Sudar, Peter Gorecka-Marshall, John Huthwaite
2.5:- Charlie Baylis, Vinod Fernando, Nikolai Harrison, Jack Tucker-Feltham
2:- Paul Wileman
1:- Albert Biermann, Marshall Redmond, Andy While (from 3 rounds)
0:- Felipe (from 2 rounds)