We held the annual Crowthorne Christmas Speed Handicap last Friday (15th December), in the Pinewood bar & café using the function room at the back, which proved to be a perfectly suitable room for us. We set a new record for attendance – 28 players, including seven juniors, two parents and two newcomers.
Given the number of players, we split into four for the group stage. The club’s strong established players did well, with Paul, Richard, Harvey and Robert winning their respective groups. This despite Paul, for example, having less than 5 minutes total playing time across all 6 games.
For the knockout stage we also introduced a novelty, a round of 16. The field was reduced to 3 juniors in the semi-finals, Matthew, David and Dylan, along with Hamid attending his first club competition. The final saw David and Dylan playing a fine and evenly balanced game, both playing with great maturity. David pushed for an attack, but Dylan gave no ground and after an even and well fought battle, it was Dylan who had the better time control and won the game, and with it the Harvey-Ironside Shield.
Congratulations to Dylan, and indeed to David too for doing so well.
We had two other “winners”, both earning themselves a bottle of wine: Scott for the most outrageous Christmas costume (the snowman onesie, slightly tighter fitting this year) and Michael for sportingly giving all the other players a chance.
