07 July 2010

Match Secretary’s Report 2009

Summer Lightning

7 teams competed in last summer’s summer lightning which was won by Clifton, who finished ahead of Downend, Horfield, Clevedon & Grendel.

League Divisional winners

43 teams competed in our Five Divisions last season.  This compared to 47 teams the season before 2007 2008.

Division 1 Clifton A proved too strong again, holding off the challenge of Downend A and Horfield A quite comfortably.  At the bottom the B teams struggled to hold their own whilst Clevedon A who looked a dead cert for relegation improved in the latter half of the season to avoid a bottom two finish.

Division 2 was won by Horfield C on the final day of the season by the margin of 1.5 game points over their nearest rivals Clifton C as both weree locked on 24 pts each.  Clevedon B and the University finished closely behind on 22pts.  Both Yate A and Grendel B found it tough going in a very competitive division two.

Division 3 was won by Bath B who overtook the early leaders Keynsham B who were maintaining a 100% record, to finish on 27 pts three ahead of Keynsham B.

Division 4 was closely won by Harambee over Clevedon C where the two finished on the same match points and were split by 1.5 game points.

Division 5 involved 7 teams.  The Division was unfortunately let down by Cotham School who managed to play only 3 matches.  Nethertheless a keen UWE team performed well only dropping 2 points all season.

Knockout winners

LKO - The League Knockout was spectacularly won by Bath on board count as they overcame Clifton’s top boards in an exciting final hour to make up for the losses on the lower boards.

MLKO - The Minor Knockout was also decided on board count as Horfield inflicted a defeat over Clifton this time to win the cup for the 4^th time in 5 years.  This close affair was decided at the death when a Rook was invitingly left on pris for Howard Millbank to level up the match 3- 3

Steve Boniface Tankard with Real Ale ( 1^st award )

I chose what I felt was a good selection of games from last summers Steve Boniface Memorial Congress ( 10 games taken from all the sections ) and left Howard Millbank with the games to choose a winner but without headers so he was only aware of the section the game was played in but unaware of the players names.

Howard chose a game played by his clubmate Graham Strickland ( much to Howard’surprise ! ) that can be viewed or downloaded from the website. Definitely not a fix !

Alan Ashby

The winner of the Alan Ashby competition this season goes to Chris Dorrington ( Bath University )(12) points from 12 games played

Four other players achieved (12) points playing for their registered team this season but Chris Dorrington was the only one on 100% score

The four other players were:  Duncan Grossett & Dave Collier ( Clifton )  Nigel Hosken ( Downend ) and David Vaughan ( Thornbury )

Who is on Form ?

Players that have excelled this season include Alistair Gilbert ( Grendel A ), Nigel Hosken ( Downend A ), J Kilmister ( Keynsham A ), Chris Lamming ( Bath University

Statistics

The Grading thresholds for next season will have to be altered to reflect the New Grades coming out in August.

 (1-2)(2-3)(3-4)(4-5)(5-6) - Divisions

144,  106,   91,   77,   54   Last Season

142,  105,   83,   76,   44   New Season 

Converting to the new grading thresholds:

156,   127,  110,  104,  79  New Grade Thresholds

Grading

All games played in the league and the knockout will soon be sent to the ECF for Grading in time for the new published list that comes out in August which will include the New Grades.

Results sheets

I get the majority of results sent in now via email and this probably accounts for over two-thirds of all results.  This has worked wellwith only the odd error needing to be sorted out but it is still important for captains to keep a record of results as a backup.  Home Captains are urged to print out their own result sheets from the website and keep hold of a signed copy themselves.

Website

The League Website at www.chessit.co.uk has now been online now since October 2005 and has passed 100,000 hits.  The hit counter was unfortunately reset after hitting this figure and is fast approaching 6,000 hits.  I have added where time allows many games from local congresses and intend to add more databases over the coming months.  The Website Forum is nearly spam free again and anyone is welcome to make use of it.   

David Tipper

E mail:  Chessit@blueyonder.co.uk          Website address:  www.chessit.co.uk