Blitz Champs

This took place as scheduled on one night (July 19). In an innovation, we tried the modern 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment format instead of the traditional 5 minutes. I guess this is the way of the future, but I used to like winning the occasional game on time when two rooks, a queen, and a couple of minor pieces down. Never mind.

Three groups played a round robin and the top two from each group played out the finals. The top 6 were Ker,Wastney,Croad (visiting old-boy), Van der Hoorn, Sellen and Stoeveken. In a nutshell, Ker picket fenced to be our Blitz champ for 2011. Van der Hoorn was nearly as impressive, losing one game and winning the rest. Croad and Wastney drew with each other and beat those lower down. Sellen avoided the wooden spoon by registering a single win, against Stoeveken. Stoeveken did extremely well to make it to the finals, taking down Ker in the prelims (the only player to avoid defeat against Anthony all night), and finishing ahead of blitz specialist Nyberg and classy players like Nijman and Pomeroy.