An unusually low number of 11 members played this season, quite a contrast to the 27 who played just two seasons ago, with several who normally play being unavailable due to holidays etc.
The format was a 5 round Swiss held over two consecutive Tuesdays with 24 minutes for each player plus or minus time (in multiples of 4 minutes) depending on which of the 5 sets the players were allocated to, for example the players in the set 1 got 20 minutes v 28 minutes for players in set 2. Set 1 v set 5 was 8 minutes v 42 minutes.
Round 1 saw two giant killings with Ronnie (set 4) beating Vinod (set 2) and Dennis (set 5) beating Paul (set 3). Mike B (set 1 of course) saw off Mark (set 3), Felipe (set 2) beat Marshall (set 4) and Brian (set 3) forced a draw with Drag (set 2) after accepting the latter’s unsound knight sacrifice.
There were no surprises in rounds 2 & 3, leaving Mike in the lead on 3 with Drag & Brian half a point behind.
Felipe and Vinod were unable to attend week 2, but Mike N-E was able to play after being unavailable in week 1.
In round 4 Mike B easily exploited Drag’s poor opening and Brian could only draw with Marshall.
This left Brian needing to beat Mike B to win the title and he began well and at one point was a piece ahead but Mike B had compensation and clawed it back to a drawn position but then Brian played one or two inaccurate moves allowing Mike B to promote a pawn and win the game.
Congratulations to Mike Barnes for becoming the 2025-26 Club Champion.
The final scores were:
5.0: Mike B
3.5: Drag
3.0: Brian
2.0: Mark, Dennis, Mike N-E, Felipe
1.5: Marshall
1.0: Paul, Ronnie, Vinod
The club championship shield honours the winners from 29 championships held since 1994.
This was Mike Barnes’ 9th win (1999, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 & 2026).
Peter Mercs has won 5 times (2002, 2003, 2014, 2018 & 2023).
4 people have won twice: Zdenek Soki (2005 & 2006), Richard Edwards (2008 & 2009), Steve Hunter (2010 & 2013) and Mike Naylor-Eade (2022 & 2025).
One time winners are Florian Biermann (2024), Drag Sudar (2019), Graeme Jennings (2016), Mark Darlington (2001), Ryan Randall (1995), Tony Wright (1994) and joint winners Austen Carlton & Graham Gibson (1997)