Christmas Speed Handicap Results
We finally held the thirty fourth Crowthorne Christmas speed handicap tournament last night (Saturday 2nd April) shortly before Easter, having postponed the event on its original date, shortly before Christmas, due to Covid restrictions. Nonetheless, a number of people thoughtfully entered into the spirit of the occasion by wearing their Christmas jumpers, and Scott even appeared in his legendary snowman onesie. Attendance was roughly half that of the previous over the board tournament in 2019, but that didn’t make the chess any more refined: the same extraordinary twists and turns of fate occurred on the boards as ever.
The winners of the two groups were Scott and Daniel and, appropriately perhaps, they were also the two finalists. Daniel reached the final beating Harriet in the semis after a hard-fought game in which he ingeniously sacrificed a queen to reach an advantageous bishop and pawn ending, converting it to a win through precise and careful technique. Scott had a somewhat quicker semi-final win against Mark (Cross) in a choppy tactical melee typical of the speed handicap.
In the final Scott played the opening which has given him so much success this season, the Black Lion defence albeit move in advance as white, and it delivered the goods for him again. Daniel’s king came under pressure along files and diagonals, leading to Scott delivering an on-the-board checkmate.
Congratulations to Scott for his first Speed Handicap win and fine performance all evening. Daniel’s turn will surely come.
At the other end of the field of achievements, Christine deprived Colin (Purdon) of the wooden spoon and bottle of wine. Thank you to her and to all who attended.
Many thanks to Jonathan for organising another enjoyable Christmas Handicap.
Tactics in the Benoni
In a recent match against Basingstoke, Derek played the Benoni defence, and both players conspired to create a tactical melee.
(Click on a move below to open a board window.)
Both players navigating through the complications very well.
4NCL Online Round 4 results
Crowthorne had good results in their latest 4NCL Online matches last Tuesday, with the A team winning their match 4-0, and the B team winning theirs 2-1.5 (a half point penalty is awarded in the event of a default).
Full results, pairings, tables etc can be found on the 4NCL website (Crowthorne A is in Div 2, Crowthorne B in Div 5).
Back in Wellington College!
Good news: Wellington College have removed their restriction on external events, so Crowthorne is now able to play home matches and have regular club nights again.
The Junior club returned to the college yesterday, and we will have a first full meet up at the College next Wednesday (2nd March). We will continue to meet on Thursdays at Pinewood.
4NCL Rounds 3 and 4
The two Crowthorne Chess Club teams were playing in rounds 3 & 4 of the 4NCL this weekend (12-13 Feb).
Crowthorne A had good results, winning both their matches 4-2, leaving them equal first on match points, but 4th on tiebreak.
Crowthorne B had a weekend of two halves, losing their Saturday match 6-0 but winning on Sunday 5-1! Both results can be explained by the large rating differences in the matches.
The Division 3 South table now looks like:
Christmas Handicap – CANCELLED
Owing to the increased risk of transmission posed by the omicron variant, Wellington College has made the (entirely understandable) decision to close the bar until further notice.
As a result, the Christmas Handicap will NOT take place this Saturday (18th December).
(“Cancelled” may be a bit strong, as we are considering alternative ways of holding the tournament in the New Year.)
Christmas Handicap
This year’s Christmas Handicap will take place on December 18th at the Napoleon’s Retreat bar in Wellington College.
Club members are requested to let Jonathan know if they plan to take part.
Daniel Shek is victorious at the 4NCL
Talented junior Daniel Shek played a nice game for Crowthorne against a strong opponent at the recent 4NCL. Many thanks to John Upham and British Chess News for the annotations.
(Click on a move in the game to display a board.)
Online 4NCL – Season 4 Roundup
Many thanks to our Online Team Captain, George Green, for providing the latest season’s roundup.
Crowthorne had a squad of 14 players (initially 13, then Ben Coates joined us with 2 rounds to go) for our 2 teams of 4.
Plenty you might think, but, as the season went on, fewer people were available, meaning that in the end we had 62 availabilities for the 56 games, so there were only 6 occasions when someone had to be “rested”.
Crowthorne 1 had been promoted to Division 3. We lost our first 3 matches, but then won the next 4, putting us 4th out of 8 teams in our group. The highlight of the season was possibly our 2½ – 1½ win over local rivals Farnham, who outgraded us by over 100 points on average.
Crowthorne 2 had a harder time of it in Division 5, but the 4NCL does give some of our less experienced members the chance to play longer (45+15) competitive games of chess.
They finished 43rd out of 56 teams, with 2 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses.
The 4NCL currently has plans to run season 5, starting in late January.
I’ll contact the club members nearer the time to see what interest we have in participating in this.
Online 4NCL – Season 4 Final Round Results
Here are the results of Round 7 of the Online 4NCL, the final round of season 4. As can be seen, the results were in line with the significant rating difference seen in both matches.
