Results
A Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 1 Ker, Anthony 2479 9 . W W W W W W W W W 2 Dive, Russell 2434 8 L . W W W W W W W W 3 Nijman, Brian 2196 6 L L . W L W W W W W 4 Van der Hoorn, Mark 2178 5.5 L L L . W W W W W D 5 Aldridge, Alan 1914 3.5 L L W L . L L W D W 6 Sellen, Ian 2061 3.5 L L L L W . W D D D 7 Nyberg, Michael 2070 3.5 L L L L W L . D W W 8 Forster, Bill 1995 2.5 L L L L L D D . W D 9 Jackson, Ross 1975 2 L L L L D D L L . W 10 Wilkins, Mark 1941 1.5 L L L D L D L D L .
B Grade
B Cross Table No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 1 Stoeveken, Peter 1740 6 . L W W W L W W W 2 Farrington, Lawrenc 1737 5 W . D L D W W D D 3 Havukkala, Ilkka 1877 4.5 L D . L W L W W W 4 Stracy, Don 1751 4 L W W . L W L L W 5 Rabina, Romeo 1773 4 L D L W . W L D W 6 Kay, Bruce 1862 3.5 W L W L L . D D D 7 Jhurani, Anil 1723 4.5 L L L W W D . W W 8 Brockway, Andrew 1848 3 L D L W D D L . D 9 Roberts, Mike 1775 1.5 L D L L L D L D .
C Grade
No Name Loc Total #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 1 Whittle, Jonathon 1688 7.5 . W D W W W W W W 2 Marney, John 1603 7 L . W W W W W W W 3 Veldhuizen, Matt 1467 6.5 D L . W W W W W W 4 Gillespie, John 1574 4.5 L L L . W D W W W 5 Ranson, Bryce 1362 4 L L L L . W W W W 6 Theodosiou, Andreas 1249 2.5 L L L D L . L W W 7 Palmer, Luke 1195 2 L L L L L W . L W 8 Sknar, Andriy 1041 2 L L L L L L W . W 9 Proctor, Matthew 1477 0 L L L L L L L L .
Reports
The Club Champs for 2011 finished on Tuesday 11 Oct with the final two catchup games. Congratulations to Anthony Ker, Peter Stoeveken and Jonathon Whittle, sole winners in each of the A, B and C grades respectively. Thanks again to Ian Sellen for a smoothly run tournament. Full results below. See you all at the Julian Mazur next week!
Catchup round 3
Just two games to wind things up. Anil Jhurani featured in another game of unbelievable fireworks. In the end Mike Roberts, who seemed for choice most of the way, found himself in a mating net and had to resign despite his three extra pawns. Anil's king had been chased out of his house but ironically ended up decisively closing the net. Mark Van der Hoorn took full advantage of my insipid opening play to setup a strong positional bind that eventually yielded a decisive tactical coup. A nice game by Mark, a late surge has him distancing himself from the also-rans and joining Brian Nijman as a legitimate second tier contender behind Ker and Dive.
Catchup round 2
The last game to influence the final standings featured Jonathon Whittle playing against Matt Veldhuizen's Stonewall Dutch. Matt needed to win to create a three way tie, any other result would see Jonathon undefeated and first alone. A well played game ensued. Jonathon secured the thematic advantage of knight versus Franco-Dutch white squared bishop. But Matt has been reading his books, and he managed to activate the bishop in classical fashion with Bc8-d7-e8-h5. The game then burned out to a dead drawn king and pawn ending. Contrats Jonathon. Other games saw Mark van der Hoorn and John Gillespie winning pieces and converting them to wins against Alan Aldridge and Luke Palmer respectively. Not sure what happened with Jhurani v Havukkala apart from Ilkka won and the game apparently began 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.a3?! which is a new one to me.
Catchup round 1
A full round of A grade games plus a smattering of others featured in the first catchup round. The A grade is finally settled, congratulations to Anthony Ker who scores a Fischeresque picket fence. Russell Dive has also completed his tournament, and comes second with the only blemish on his scorecard the pivotal round 5 clash with his great rival. Brian Nijman still has a lock on 3rd place, despite stumbling against one of the chasing journeymen from the pelleton (Monsieur Alain Aldridge). A quick play by play;
Sellen-Ker
Ker developed a king side attack from his favourite anti-English
setup. Ian tried to break the attack by sacrificing a piece for 2
pawns. Anthony finished off with a nice counter sacrifice of a piece
for 2 pawns (so material now level) with the sting in the tail being
that at the end mate and a loose white knight were simultaneously
threatened (so black ends up a whole piece up).
Dive-Van der Hoorn
Russell's double fianchetto flowered suddenly with a nice tactical
central breakthrough. Mark defended well for a while and almost held
the balance but then collapsed under the pressure allowing a one
move knockout tactic.
Wilkins-Nyberg
An odd game, Mark had a tactic that (should have) won the exchange, but Borg threw
an intermediate move into the mix that succeeded in confusing Mark. As
a result he ended up not collecting the rook he deserved as a return on
his piece investment. Mike then had no trouble converting his healthy
extra piece.
Nijman-Aldridge
This started as a Veresov. Both players ended up castling queenside and a kind of unusual mutual
simultaneous attack against the kings ensued. White had more weaknesses
on that side and Alan played impressive positional chess, slowly
outplaying and rolling over the top of his highly rated opponent. Alan
has had a good tournament, making a mockery of his rating.
Forster-Jackson
Ross was doing well in a kind of reversed Benoni, but he played a
couple of unnatural moves in a row that effectively donated a
pawn. Much to my surprise I slowly turned my extra pawn to
account, even winning a rook and pawn ending against good opposition
for possibly for the very first time in my life. I was sitting there
enjoying the afterglow, fondly imagining I had worn down sturdy defense
from a worthy foe who had desperately fought a brave if ultimately
unsuccessful rearguard battle against the privations of a material
deficit. But Ross rather rained on my parade with the after match
commentary that went something like this; Ross: "I only noticed I was a
pawn down right at the end. When did I lose it ?" Bill: "About 40
moves ago" Ross: "How?" Bill: "Well I was attacking your c pawn twice,
you were defending it twice, but then you moved one of the defenders
away so I took it". Ross: "Oh". I offer this exclusive insight into the
extraordinarily sophisticated chess thinking of two top A grade players
in an attempt to intimidate lesser beings who will no doubt conclude
that they can't ever aspire to operate at this stratospheric level of
Olympian mind play.
Some other games;
Havukkala-Stracy
This was a great game, all action from start to finish. It could have
gone either way, but Don landed the last and decisive big hit.
Rabina-Jhurani
Also an all-action, thrill-a-minute encounter that will please
adrenaline junkies. Anil always had his nose in front.
Gillespie-Ransom
John cashed in on an overly optimistic attempted tactic from Bryce
(edit: on a second look it was actually was more a case of Bryce
getting a bishop trapped than an attempted tactic).
In his first club champs Bryce has been a good competitor. He's young
enough and keen enough to be a future strong player. Luke Palmer
is in that category too.
In the big guns clash from the C grade, Jonathon Whittle's Hippo did some serious damage again. Hippo connosieurs would love both the pure interpretation of the opening Jonathon started with (pawns on a6,b6,d6,e6,g6,h6, Ns on d7,e7, Bs on b7,g7), and the choice of one of the most aggressive follow up plans (g6-g5,Ne7-g6-f4). John Marney is not the first player to discover that developing pieces and putting pawns in the centre is not a sufficient plan in itself against this apparently bizarre setup. I heard on the night that Jonathon trapped John's queen, but the game score doesn't show this, and indeed white appears no worse in the final position, so I suspect the score is incomplete or otherwise incorrect (Update: A couple of members have emailed me the correct score - the current championship .pgn misses a pair of moves near the end - Be2 from white and ...Bc8 for black that closed off the white queen's escape squares - we'll ensure this is fixed for the next .pgn email). This grade is still undecided with Matt Veldhuizen now getting a chance to create a three way tie if he can win next week.
Young Andriy Sknar won his first club game, from Luke Palmer. I suspect there will be many, many more. Unfortunately we don't have the game score.
Round 9
The final round doesn't quite see the end of the tournament, as there are still a number of catch-up games. In the A grade nothing much changes, we still have a lopsided tournament where 3 players have shown themselves to be genuine A grade players and the others have been trailing in their wake.
Aldridge-Sellen. Alan won a pawn but got his pieces in a bit of a tangle and one of them fell off.
Van der Hoorn-Jackson. A confusing game of fluctuating fortunes. An early tactical flurry saw Ross winning two pieces for a rook and pawn. Stockfish was impressed by this but regular readers will know that this material imbalance can turn against the good guys in the endgame, and that's exactly what happened here.
Ker-Nyberg. Nyberg tried an unconventional ...b6 based opening, but Ker was in his element as this inevitably gave him a space advantage and a slow-burning kingside attack, which duly crashed through in exemplary fashion.
Dive-Wilkins. Russell's experience told in an open Catalan. White gets a queenside initiative, Mark couldn't quite dampen it down, and Russell won an important pawn before turning his attention to the kingside where a little tactic ended all resistance.
Nijman-Forster. I got mercilessly smashed as I tried unsuccessfully to adapt a ...Qc7 and ....Nd8 defensive idea from my 1.e4 c5 2.c3 e5 anti-anti Sicilian pet line (where it works) to the 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e5 anti-anti Sicilian (where it turns out that it doesn't). As Brian pointed out in a helpful email the next day, the difference is that in the latter line, White has c3 available for a knight. The bottom line was that I got mated for the second week in a row, this time as early as move 18. If I am going to get mated every week, I might reconsider my policy of allowing mate rather than resigning when it seems to me that a mating line is the logical conclusion to the game.
In the B grade Stoeveken-Roberts signalled the end of the battle for 1st place. It is often frustrating trying to play the Benoni at club level because many opponents don't know they are supposed to advance d5 in response to ...c5. I am probably being unfair to Peter, but anyway this game went down that unconventional (no d5) track into an unusual and messy position. But then Mike overlooked a little trick that cost him a big pawn. He tried to hold things together by moving his king to d7 but that made things worse and he got torn to pieces as the position opened up. Congratulations to Peter Stoeveken who thereby secures sole first place in the B grade. This quick knock-out meant even a win wouldn't suffice for Lawrence to catch up, and possibly that was a factor in an early peaceful conclusion to his game with Rabina. Other B grade games saw smooth and impressive wins to Bruce Kay over Ilkka Havukkala and Anil Jhurani over Andrew Brockway.
In the C grade Hippo specialist Jonathon Whittle again showed how this quiet system can turn ferocious with a thematic pawn break and a powerful kingside attack against John Gillespie. John Marney kept up with Jonathon Whittle by trapping Luke Palmer's optically impressive knight on e4 although Stockfish finds a resource that could have kept Luke on top. Marney and Whittle have been doing a Ker and Dive impression in the C grade, carrying all before them. Their big showdown comes this Tuesday. Meanwhile Matt Veldhuizen is channelling Brian Nijman (the "other guy", pushing the big two) and he kept this up with a "pin and win" tactic early in the middle game against Andreas Theodosiou.
Round 8
Apologies for being late with this. Also apologies for my once over lightly approach to these round summaries. I have been criticised for being superficial and failing to get to the truth of the games. Well I suppose I am guilty as charged, as I don't have the time or inclination to study the games in depth and instead basically report on my impression of the games. If you feel you've been suffered an injustice, I will gladly edit in a revised judgement (see round 6 for just such a revision).
Sellen-Nijman saw a kind of Bogo in which Ian rather meekly fell a pawn behind, but then battled gamely for hours to reach a thoroughly drawn ending. But fatigue and the necessity to keep making moves eventually yielded a losing blunder after midnight. A shame really.
Wilkins-Ker featured a very unusual position as early as move 2. 1.d4 d6 2.Bg5?!. Addiction to the Trompovsky can lead to this sort of thing presumably. After successfully going toe to toe with a strong tactician last week, Mark tried mixing things up again, but this time the tactical flurry just left him a pawn down with a bad position.
Forster-Dive had me unwisely trying to prepare something for Russell's Alekhines without spending enough time to look at sidelines and alternatives. Smelling a potential rodent, Russell selected one of the aforementioned sidelines and sure enough I went wrong in an unfamiliar setting. I spent the rest of the game trying to hold things together. I managed to maintain material equality, and even get all my pieces working reasonably well, but I had some weaknesses and I fell over meekly as soon as I ran out of time and had to move quickly.
Mark van der Hoorn punished Michael Nyberg's attempt to play a King's Indian attack against his Caro-Kann. Mark developed a nice attack very efficiently by quick development, queenside castling and an h5,h4 push against the lever at g3. This led smoothly to a nice queen sacrifice that wasn't (since capturing led to immediate mate) that won plentiful material.
Something a little similar to that happened to Ilkka Havukkala in the B grade against Peter Stoeveken. This time it was inaccurate play against a French that led to a black win as quick development, queenside castling and a fast kingside attack carried the day.
Rabina v Kay was a Tarrasch where Bruce thematically accepted an IQP in return for free development. But Bruce stepped on his own toes by taking away the only retreat line his queen on f6 had and opportunity knocked for Romeo. Romeo gleefully grabbed the opportunity to win 3.51 pawns worth of material according to Stockfish 2.1.1 64 bit (I am playing with some of the strong free engines my recently released Tarrasch V2.0 Chess GUI elegantly and smoothly hosts :-).
Andrew Brockway won a pawn against Mike Roberts, but wasn't able to turn it to account.
Jonathan Whittle met good resistance from Andriy Sknar, but (once again) Andriy played too quickly and lost material. My advice is to all our members is to play Andriy this year, or maybe next, since beyond that I sense a Daniel Baider re-run in the making.
Round 7
I am going to indulge myself with extended commentary on Ker-Forster. My excuse is that it was a particularly interesting game. So sue me. My preparation consisted of not knowing who I was playing or what colour I was. Arrive at the club, check the noticeboard, black v Anthony. Bugger. I was still frantically mentally surveying my options when the game started and 1.e4 predictably appeared on the board. I considered and rejected (in order) 1...g6, 1...d6, 1...e5, 1...e6, 1...c6, 1...Nf6, 1...Nc6, 1...d5 and 1...b6. The problem with these openings is that I don't play any of them. That didn't necessarily mean I wouldn't have a crack Nigel, but in the end I decided that the smart move was to play something I know. Don't give it to him. These guys get too many free points from people who crack psychologically and don't play their best chess as a consequence. So, for maybe the fifth time we debated my anti-anti-Sicilian 1.e4 c5 2.c3 e5 sideline. Anthony always seems surprised by 2...e5, I think he's like a big lion lazing on the Serengheti and I am a little weevil or something flying under his radar. Mixed metaphors a speciality. So after digesting me as a small snack he promptly forgets all about the (small) meal and doesn't bother finding out the good housekeeping approved way of cooking that particular dish. This should be good news for me, but unfortunately he usually comes up with a recipe based on an early f4 that seems more testing than the usually recommended antidotes. This time he took it a little too far though, playing 3.f4 after which I think the addition of c3 and ...c5 to a king's gambit aren't in any way disadvantageous to black. I didn't try to hold my pawn, got in a quick d5, developed quickly and castled. Woo hoo 10 moves or so in Rybka says I am slightly better. The lesson, as always, preparation is overated.
Now the plot thickened in a very interesting and instructive way. The theme here is arithmetic. Chess arithmetic of course doesn't work the same way as regular arithmetic. When Anthony played Ng5 followed by Nxf7 ...Rxf7 Bxf7+ ...Kxf7 I was like WTF? Isn't that a beginner's mistake ? Real chess players know that this isn't a good option because in chess 5+1 < 3+3 (i.e. a rook and pawn is worth less than two minor pieces). Right ?
Well, sort of right. Chess arithmetic works that way in the middle game. We were already in a queenless middle game. My position was now somewhat disorganised, and Anthony's pieces suddenly were more harmonious, for example a rather sad knight on a3 entered the frey purposefully on the freshly vacated c4 square. The upshot was that white had initiative, and the only way for me to dampen it down was to exchange more pieces. In no time at all we were into an endgame. K+R+6 vs K+N+N+5. In an endgame, chess arithmetic often works the other way around, now 5+1 > 3+3. Bugger (again). These considerations were amplified by the fact that the rook enjoyed the wide open position we had whereas my knights would have liked a closer position with some secure advanced footholds. The position might have been objectively level, but it was easier to play for white, plus he had time and I didn't, plus he's a lion and I'm a weevil. So I played near perfect, 2400 level chess for 25 moves only to get a position that was in practice hopeless. The lesson, as always, chess is a crappy hobby. Afterwards, Anthony opined that he got nothing from the opening, nothing from the middlegame, but the ending went well. My opinion is that I gave it my best shot but he played a minor strategic masterpiece.
Dive v Nijman saw Russell having all the fun. His ever reliable English produced a position where he had central and queenside strength, and Brian's king was taking time castling by hand. Brian tried to mount a kingside demonstration, but it was underprepared and Russell broke through the centre winning pawns and forcing a winning liquidation. The big guns have now all played each other. Has the title been decided or will there be a surprise twist ? Stay tuned.
Aldridge v Borg saw Alan falling for a Borg cheapo in time trouble. The crowd was entertained by Alan offering his hand in resignation only to realise (presumably), "wait a minute, I was a piece up, so losing a piece might not be fatal". So he quickly withdrew the hand before Borg could shake it. But his position was collapsing anyway.
Van der Hoorn v Wilkins was an entertaining encounter featuring fluctuating fortunes and wild combinations. Good to see Mark (Wilkins) giving as good as he gets in an encounter with the renowned tactical wizard.
Jackson v Sellen finished well after midnight as Ian tried to convert K+B+N vs K. He was doing reasonably well actually with Ross' king securely pinned on the side of the board but it's a tough task to finish off unless you've got specific knowledge. As it happened, Ian stumbled into a stalemate and we all breathed a sigh of relief that we wouldn't be kept up until after 1am. A few years ago I read an obscure article that described an unusual method of performing this mate. It has the advantage that you don't have to remember as much as the normal methods. Basically all I remember is that to mate on h1 put the bishop on c2 and the knight on c4. Later move them both two squares to the right so Be2 and Ne4. Interested punters might like to download my old "Reptor" program where I include a lesson that trains you in this technique. Download from; http://triplehappy.com/downloads/setup-reptor-bigboard.exe
In the B grade, Lawrence made a nice comeback from a bad endgame to beat Bruce Kay. Lawrence is kicking butt in the B grade. Lawrence in the A grade next year is a disturbing prospect. Havukkala prevailed in a very exciting rook and pawn ending v Brockway and Stoeveken converted a nice attack against Rabina.
In the C grade Whittle v Theodosiou was an interesting clash of styles. Andreas managed to get perfect Fred Reinfeld development as black, but Jonathan's hypermodern setup flowered suddenly and prevailed. Matthew Proctor has seemingly abandoned the tournament without telling anyone. Not cool. Edit: I think now he has told someone, but still not cool for leaving opponents in the lurch in the meantime. Bryce Ranson looked after his material a little better against Luke Palmer in a clash of the players of the future. And Andriy Sknar continues to show promise but also to play way too fast!
Round 6
Dive took out Sellen in a lovely positional squeeze. Russell started with c6, a6 and b5, put his last queenside pawn on a light square with his 4th move, then spent his 5th and 6th moves swapping his light squared bishop. This is what logic looks like people. Later there was a surprising (for me, and I am guessing Ian too) king side pawn storm to take over the whole board. Marvellous stuff. Edit: The previous description perhaps implies a completely one-sided contest, which is unfair on Ian. The computer confirms he was right in the game, indeed ahead on points, even after Russell began his kingside expansion. It was still impressive how Russell imposed his will on the game and made such an ambitious plan work in practice.
Nijman and Ker went into this as joint leaders on 4 out of 4, but it was a disappointing game, Brian blundering an important pawn right out of the opening (the quiet Geller anti Pirc/Modern system), and a whole rook not long after. Mark Wilkins was also in suicidal mode v Alan Aldridge, as Mark found ways to make Al's caveman attack more effective that it perhaps should have been. Nyberg v Jackson featured Michael sacrificing a piece for not much, but then Ross donated a whole rook. Ross' position before that was so good that he now had decent drawing chances an exchange down, but they disappeared when he followed up by blundering one of his two beautiful bishops as well.
In the B grade Lawrence v Stoeveken featured Lawrence playing against the French with aplomb (again). The pressure he built up told on Peter who blundered a piece. I wasn't there but I hope there was no mad cackling laughter. Lawrence finished off rather tidily it has to be said. Rabina v Brockway was a rather tame draw. For some reason the players abandoned the game in an interesting looking assymetrical early middle game. In the C grade John Marney played a nice Tartakower QGD against John Gillespie, the game finishing slightly prematurely when John overlooked a mate threat (whoops).
Round 5
Every significant Wellington tournament these days revolves around Ker vs Dive and all eyes were on board 1 this week. Using his favourite Alekhine's debut, Russell inevitably had to combat a king side attack from Anthony. He chose to do so with active counterplay in the centre rather than conventional passive defence. The culmination of this strategy was an interesting queen for rook plus minor piece plus counter attack sac that just fell short.
This was just one of many interesting and exciting games this week. I was particularly charmed by Jackson-Wilkins which like Ker-Dive featured some very imaginative defence. I am sure Nimzowitsch would have approved of Mark's mysterious h6 followed by Rh7 manoevre initially protecting g7, followed by f and g pawn advances to activate the rook on the second rank. Ross is more of a meat and three veg man and classicists will no doubt be pleased to know his more conventional attacking play eventually prevailed.
Borg v Sellen was yet another battle between fantasy and convention. I was skeptical of Michael's Knight tour plus apparently premature h pawn push whilst Ian developed classically. But it seemed to work out at least reasonably for Borg until he decided to advance his king into a nasty net.
Brian Nijman is keeping pace with Anthony's 100% after beating Mark van der Hoorn in a strange game in which it seems to me Mark left a rook en-prise for no particularly good reason. Maybe I am missing something. In the final A grade game, the global TV audience were of course shocked by the result of Aldridge-Forster. My first ever classical time control loss to Alan was painful and traumatic in the extreme, and I'm not sure if I am going to make it through to be honest. Actually it was a pretty good game, in which Al started well, playing a long way down the main (and most testing) line of the Classical Dutch without knowing it. And it has to be said he finished off well to. Both players offered their opponent at least a couple of chances to win outright in a complex and interesting struggle, Al took the second of his opportunities well, playing a series of Rybka's number one choices.
In other games Bruce Kay halted Peter Stoeveken's momentum. I saw nothing of the game so I can't comment. Matt Veldhuizen and John Gillespie both went for maximum enjoyment rather than prosaic percentage play and the result was a pleasing King's Gambit win for Matt.
Round 4
Was largely postponed due to polar weather. Three games did go ahead. In the B grade Brockway and Kay drew, and Don Stracy beat Lawrence Farrington despite losing a piece. Apparently some strong, advanced central pawns overwhelmed the Farrington defences, much to Lawrence's disgust. In the C grade Matt Veldhiuzen beat Andriy Sknar (no doubt a little snow is not considered a hardship worth bothering about in the Ukraine). The other round 4 games are postponed until catch up nights.
Round 3
A pattern is starting to emerge. The A grade has already split into two parts, the also-rans and the top players. The top players include the dynamic duo (you know who I am talking about) and Brian Nijman. Brian has been just as dominant as the other two. In fact Ker was the only one of these three who has had to break sweat so far, Alan Aldridge made him grind all the way deep into an ending in round 2. In round 3 Anthony had an easy night as Mark first did well (I think) to move order him into the black side of a Maroczy Accelerated Sicilian, but then self distructed with a bizarre antipositional g4 thrust to lose in 13 (no misprint) moves. Alan didn't have another good night, Russell picking him apart easily after some innacuracies from Al on the white side of a Nimzo. Brian also did a number on Ross. In a similar sort of game, Ross on the white side of a QGA neglected his development and never really got out of the opening alive.
In the B grade Peter Stoeveken looks to be the player to beat at this stage, with 3 wins. In this round he grovelled for a long time in a cramped position and eventually outlasted Andrew Brockway.
In the C grade, John Marney continues his good form with 3 wins, he is increasingly looking like a player destined for better things. And top seed Jonathon Whittle is also on 100%, although he has played a game less after a Northern Hemisphere sojourn.
Round 2
Results are now in, later on I'll hopefully ramp things up with round reports and hopefully some "games-of-the-week". Please try the new system of entering your game on the club computer before you leave, it only takes 5 minutes or less (thanks to the ahem, state of the art chess GUI we are using, nudge nudge, wink wink). If nothing else this will give you a better chance of scoring the coveted game of the week status. Of course providing annotated games is even better.
Round 1
Ian's superb organisation saw a smooth lift off, with everyone sorted into one of three grades, and a smooth first round. There had been some format debates in the preceding weeks, but Ross ended them by pointing out that we were already committed to FIDE rating of a 10 player round robin A grade.