14 June 2015

Chipping Sodbury Rapidplay - Oct 2013

Attendance was slightly down on last time, with only 38 players. I kept the 3 sections intact by joining in and playing  in the Minor, making it up to 8 players, the minimum for a sensible section.

I was able to do this thanks to the magic of Tournament Director(a pairings program which makes life much easier), and no disputes. Players handled time flurries on their own, and extremely well!

In the Open section (16 players), a new face (to us at least) Steven Jones, originally from Cheshire but currently at university in Surrey, looked like he was going to romp home with his grade of 182*, winning his first 3 games against Roger Hardy(156), David Buckley (223) and  Peter Jaszkiwskyj (168), but he lost to Derek Pugh (212*) in round 4. However, he recovered again and wins against Chris Timmins (165) and Gareth Morris (184*) meant he finished first with 5/6 and took the £60 first prize. Jaszkiwskyj and Morris were joint second (4½), and Chris Timmins won the grading prize (under 180) with 3½.

In the Major (U155), there were 14 players. It went down to the wire with several players battling it out. In the end, Alex Rossiter (152) of  Cabot took the fifty quid with 5/6, his final round draw with Dave Marshall from Trowbridge being enough to see him home alone. Greig Sweetland (Bath, 139) was second with 4½, and the grading prize (under 140) went to Gareth Williams (113), also of Trowbridge, with 3/6.

The ‘mini-Minor’ section (U125) was jointly won with 4/6 by Richard Porter (University), Will Taplin (Keynsham) and Adrian Walker (Stroud), winnig £15 each.  With only 8 players, this was not a Swiss tournament as such, more a ‘Most play Most’, but great fun! It was good to see new (well, recycled) player Grant Daly (Downend) in his first tournament for 20 years, and he scored two draws, one of them against me! Thank you for asking, I finished with 3½ which, considering I was also running the entire tournament alone, I was not disappointed with (so there!).

PS I took my camera with me, but in all the rush, I forgot to take any photos!

Graham Mill-Wilson