This took place at the weekend and 169 players took part.

Open Section.

Almost everyone expected this to be dominated by GM Mark Hebden and IM Jonah Willow, but it did not work out like that at all.

In round 3, Mark lost to Nigel Birtwistle and Jonah could only draw with Shabir Okhai, great results for our league players. Jonah’s day did not improve as he lost in the final round to Matthew Inglis who shared 1st place on 4.5 / 6 with Mark Hebden and Nigel Birtwistle.

Matthew’s last published grade was in 2000. He returned to competitive chess in last year’s Rapidplay where he scored 4.5 / 6 in the Major before winning the Nottingham Congress Major in May with 4.5 / 5. He made his debut in the league only last week, for Beeston 1.

Mike Barnes scored 3.5 / 6. His only wins came against John Swain and Felipe.

Drag scored 3 points including a win over Felipe in round 6 in a drawn book position (Rook each and a rook’s pawn for Drag). Drag saw Felipe go the wrong way with his king (to the ‘f’ file rather than the ‘h’ file, so thought “let’s see what happens”, and was rewarded with a win, and a one third share of the “slow starter” prize after his LLDDWW sequence.

John, who we are more used to seeing control this event, played in his first Nottingham Rapidplay this century, and scored 2.5 points. He had a tough draw, losing to Jonah in round 1, to Matthew Inglis in round 5, and to Mike Barnes in round 6.

Felipe, playing for the first time in the Open section of a Rapidplay, scored 2 points. He was unlucky to get the full point bye in round 1, then lost to Nigel and Mike before drawing twice.
In the final round he suffered that unfortunate loss to Drag.

Major Section.

Mark Radford began well with two wins but could only manage a single draw after that to finish on 2.5 points.

Former member Oliver Graham, who played for our 2nd team in 2017-18, scored 3.5 points. He was going well on 2.5 / 3 but was then unlucky to play (and lose to) Benjamin Humphreys and Senith Gunarathne who both have 2000+ standard play ratings.

There are many players whose standard play ratings have improved over the years but who have much lower rapidplay ratings due to inactivity. There is a pretty strong argument in Rapidplay events to include a player’s standard play rating for eligibility for each section.

Oliver beat Tony Wright in round 3. Tony last played competitive chess, for Gambit, in 2008.
He returned this season, for West Nottingham, scored 3.5 points and enjoyed meeting old friends.

Intermediate Section.

Paul scored 4 points, beating former member Andrew Thompson (who scored 2.5 points) in round 6, to win the U1550 rating prize.

Marian, scored 3.5 points, beating former member Rob Ensor (who scored 2 points) in round 3.

Graham scored 3 points. He beat Ronnie in round 6 and drew with Andrew in round 3.

Ronnie scored 2 points.

Minor Section.

Ben was joint 5th on 4 points. On 2 / 3, he lost in round 4 to former member Vince Naan (who finished second on 5 points), before winning his final two games.