I just want to tell everyone about the LRCA annual prize giving event a couple of Thursdays ago (20th September), held this year at the Spinney Hill WMC.
I went up to collect the Divison 1 winners trophy and Phil Watkinson collected the Chapman Cup on behalf of the Wigston 2 team. Then the charity quickplay took place, with 15 teams of 4 players with 4 rounds of 30minute (15 minutes per player) chess.
The Quickplay event was very tight, and going into the last round the score stood:
Birstall 9.0 (out of a maximum of 12)
Wigston2 9.0
Wigston1 8.5
Shepshed 8.5
Birstall (a very strong team lead by Mark Hebben) were then due to play Wigston2 and Wigston1 played Shepshed. We went all out for it and beat Shepshed 4-0 and Wigston2 managed to get a point out of Birstall's bottom board Graham Booley, thus giving us the tournament by half a point!
We should not have won if there was any justice in the world, since, in the third round, I was utterly lost against Graham Booley (really, really lost! ) but he went wrong and allowed me to get an endgame that should have been a draw - but with quite a bit of play in it. I offered a draw and, after a couple of minutes thought, he accepted. He really shouldn't have, because he still had 3 minutes left and I had 17 seconds!
I think the psychological blow of frittering away a win affected his judgement! Our individual scores:
Martin Burrows: 1 win, 2 draws and a loss to Hebbo
Alan Byron: 4 wins
Walter Dehnen: 3 wins and a draw
Andy Morley: 2 wins and 2 draws
So we won by half a point, and so retain the Charity Board. It was a very good evening, well run in an excellent venue, and enjoyed by all.
Regards,
Andy.
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