Report – 25 January 2002
Prize Night – Handicap Lightning Tournament
The annual prize night
occurred with Doug Foster providing the usual fuss surrounding the trophies.
When setting up the display - "Of course you can’t just put them anywhere,
they have all got their special place". Fortunately young Kieran Lyons was
inducted into the Foster guild of trophy presentation, and so the secret
knowledge will not be lost.
The Handicap Lightning
tournament started with a preliminary round in 2 groups. The workings of the
handicap system are too complicated to discuss here in detail, but needless to
say caused the maximum amount of pain to the DOP. Basically, the higher the
handicap the more time the player has allotted to make moves, and the better
chance they have of winning. No one had more than 5 minutes to make moves.
Handicaps are in minutes.
|
Group A |
POINTS |
Handicap |
|
Chris Yu |
4½ |
(0.0) |
|
Kieran Lyons |
4½ |
(3.5) |
|
George Flitcroft-Smith |
3 |
(0.5) |
|
Peter Hiller |
1½ |
(3.0) |
|
Gabriel Boross |
1 |
(1.5) |
|
Russell Lyons |
½ |
(3.5) |
Chris and Kieran managed to
beat all their opponents and drew their own game, Kieran taking advantage of
her healthy handicap. This saw them through to the semi-final stage. The only
note of controversy was in the game between George and Gabriel when Gabriel’s
flag fell when he had K+R v K+N. George claimed a win saying that the latest
version of the rules of chess allow for this – K+N can mate against K+R if the
worse possible set of moves are followed by the player with the rook. (K+N
cannot of course mate against a sole king though). The DOP was not absolutely
sure of the interpretation of the new rules (FIDE - Istanbul 2000) in this
situation, but George was awarded the win, the result of this game being
academic anyway in the standings.
|
Group B |
POINTS |
Handicap |
|
Andrew Robinson |
4 |
(0.5) |
|
Harvey Quaresmini |
3½ |
(1.0) |
|
Paul Evans |
3½ |
(1.5) |
|
Doug Foster |
3 |
(2.0) |
|
Graeme Mills |
1 |
(3.5) |
|
James Hiller |
0 |
(3.5) |
Harvey beat Andrew (who was a piece up but failed to see a
B-Q mate on the diagonal), but lost to Doug and drew with Paul Evans. Paul
managed to garner 3½ points and force a play-off with Harvey for
the semi-final place. The play-off was technically a draw as Harvey had
K+Q v K when his flag fell, but the DOP needed a quick result and thus awarded
the game a draw, but the semi-final place to Harvey. The club welcomed
Graeme Mills to his first night at the club and he managed to play a few good
games including his win over James Hiller.
Semi Finals
Chris Yu defeated Harvey in a
game that required a touch move adjudication (which unfortunately for Harvey saw
him come off second best). In the other semi Kieran looked to be on top with 2
Rooks v Rook + Knight, but inadvertently gave back the exchange and ended up
with a rook game fighting to stop a passed pawn.
At the insistence of the
other players ‘Plate’ and ‘Bowl’ semis were also held:
5th to 8th: George 1 Doug 0; Paul 1 Peter 0
9th to 12th: Gabriel 1 James 0; Graeme 1 Russell 0
Final
Chris Yu had white against
Andrew and played a fairly typical queen’s pawn game. With most of the action
occurring queenside there was a large scale exchange of pieces during which
Andrew gained a 2 to 1 queenside pawn majority. With bishop and knight still on
the board Chris was unable to prevent their exchange and this led to him having
to block the pawn on the b-file (the other queenside pawns exchanged). This
allowed Andrew to move kingside and demolish the kingside pawns to make way for
a queen. So Andrew won this tournament for the first time (but the
"Knight’s Move" portrait traditionally awarded for this tournament
has mysteriously disappeared!).
Other results:
3rd place play-off: Harvey 1 Kieran 0
5th place play-off: George 1 Paul 0
7th place play-off: Doug 1 Peter 0
9th place play-off: Gabriel 1 Graeme 0
11th place play-off: Russell 1 James 0
Past winners of the Handicap Lightning tournament
Transfer
Transfer started at about 11pm with Andrew,
Paul, Harvey and George forming the nucleus and one of the Hillers dropping in
to replace the loser of the previous game from time to time. At midnight it became
more serious after the sisters left. Andrew & Paul teamed up against Harvey
& George. Paul had the distinct advantage of being the only one completely
sober. Everyone had a share of triumph and ignominy, the insults flew thick and
fast, but when bad light stopped play the set had been won 7-6 by Paul &
Andrew.
Lightning Tournament [Current Standings]
Only one set of games played
tonight:
Paul Evans 4 James Hiller 0
Standings after 25 January 2002
All players to play 32 games
|
No. |
NAME |
POINTS |
PLAYED |
|
1 |
19 |
24 |
|
|
2 |
9½ |
16 |
|
|
3 |
8 |
12 |
|
|
4 |
5 |
8 |
|
|
5 |
4½ |
10 |
|
|
6 |
2 |
4 |
|
|
7 |
2 |
8 |
|
|
8 |
2 |
10 |
|
|
9 |
2 |
12 |
Click here for the full crosstable of the 2002 Lightning Tournament.