4 of our teams played this week with two wins and two losses.
On Monday our 7th team lost 3 – 1 at division 5 leaders RB 3. Albert continued his development with an impressive draw against seasoned campaigner Marcel Taylor who is more than 500 points higher than him. Marshall also played well to draw with someone 150 points higher.
On Tuesday our 5th team consolidated 4th place in division 3, now 4 points above 7th place WN 2, by beating them 3.5 – 0.5. Paul and John T drew while Charlie won very quickly and Andy beat his opponent who, being > 150 points higher rated than board 3, was later ruled ineligible. This win also helped our 4th team who are lying 6th on the same number of points as WN 2 but with a now much better “goal difference”.
Also on Tuesday, our depleted 2nd team, without Drag and Steve, lost 4 – 1 to league leaders Uni 1. John H, who began the season on board 5, sacrificed himself on board 1 v Uni’s newest superstar Simon Schweizer who won last weekend’s Nottingham Rapidplay (more about that later). Onos yet again played really well to gain a commanding position but then Ewan Fewell found an stunning move that threatened mate in two ways (Qf4 threatening h2 mate (white K on h1 with pawns on h2 and g2) and Qxf1 mate; if Rf1 x Qf4, then Re1+ is mate next move).
On Wednesday our 3rd team went to 2nd placed Uni 2 on the same number of points and only 1 game point ahead, and emerged victorious 2.5 – 1.5 to lead division 3 by 2 points (3rd place RB 2 are also two points behind but have a match in hand). Although Felipe lost, John H and Marian both won and Nikolai brought home the points, drawing with only a few seconds left on his clock. It looks like being an exciting 3 team battle for the two promotion places.
The Nottingham Rapidplay took place last weekend with a full entry of 180 players, with the arbiter team being led by John Swain. None of our members managed to win any prize money this time.
The Open was won by Simon Schweizer, who recently joined the University. His FIDE rating is 2146 but he is clearly better than that as his league results have shown. He won his first 5 games, including a win over his Uni 1 team captain Ewan Fewell, before losing to IM Jonah Willow but it didn’t matter as Jonah had dropped points earlier, as had GM Mark Hebden who Ewan beat in round 1. Mike N-E didn’t trouble the leaders, scoring just 2 points, as did Nikolai, playing in his first weekend RP. Nikolai drew with Nomads’ Julian Cast (2020) in round 1 and a player with a standard rating of 1955 in round 3.
In the Major, Florian, one of the favourites on paper, had a disastrous start, losing to a 1700, but recovered to finish on 4 points, beating Felipe along the way. Felipe scored 2 points while John H was unfortunately too consistent in his 4 games. The Major was won by a 1679, Joseph Greco, whose standard play is over 1900 (he was 166, or 1945, in 2020). This section had several players whose RP rating was hundreds of points lower than their standard rating. Is there a case for the entry form to state “the higher of standard and rapidplay rating”?
Marian played well to score 4 points in the Intermediate, with both Graham and Paul scoring 3.5 points. Ronnie, trying his luck in a higher section, could only manage 1 point.
We had three members in the Minor. Albert lost his first two games but then scored 3.5 from his next 4, including a win over former member Maggie Gretton. Marshall, playing in his first weekend RP, played well to get 2.5 points, beating David Dunne who only managed 1.5 points. This section was won with a perfect 6 points by a player who has no rating history at all. This highlights the problems the controllers face when trying to decide which section an unrated player should go into. Should players without any rating history be allowed to win prize money?