18 October 2011
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Liam Varnam, Sons of Anarchy's top driver |
Thanks to Jonathan Rogers for
his report
and the perspective from a fellow captain. I was
a very proud captain this tournament mainly due
to my team performing stunningly above their
ratings which even they would admit are perhaps
a tad high.
In the first round we faced the
dangerous Warwickshire Select 2 side and after a
few shaky games we won 4-0, which given the
game/match point format suited us very well. The
next round we got drawn with Drunken Knights,
who had GM’s Gormally and Arkell ; the bar was
already open so both teams had pints at the
board. Sam Williams and Tom Rendle both drew and
I honestly thought (assumed) Roberson had lost
against Arkell; he sacced the exchange for an
attack but clearly it was a good attack.
I kept playing desperately a
pawn up in a tough Bishop ending. We won 2½-1½
and I was both delighted and shocked. In the
third round I dropped myself for our star
player, Mr Liam Varnam , a 10 year Shark veteran
. Both he and Sam Williams forgot they were
playing rapidplay and the top 2 boards who
scored 1½/2 vs. Parker and Piper watched in
bemusement as the clocks both fell. We lost
2½-1½ and were on 8/12, which was a respectable
score and left us in third position but having
got both the top seeds out the way.
We then played Leeds University
Old Boys and basically I decided in a must win
encounter that our star player Liam Varnam would
have to be put in again. He won very
convincingly in fact, as did Roberson and
Rendle. Sadly I was the exchange and 2 pawns
down, luckily 90% of my chess has been learnt on
the ICC and I managed to swindle an entire rook
and the game, leading to a much needed 4-0
victory.
We then had the ADs who on paper
we were unlikely to beat easily, with
Richardson, Snape and Swindells on the top 3
boards, a 200+ average. We drew the top 2 and
Sam and I led the charge and sealed the 3-1
victory. This match gave us 15/20 and clear
second place behind Barbican. We would have been
delighted with second at this point and
discussed how many points we thought would lock
it in. Roberson thought we could get 8/8 against
the final two opponents with such complete
belief it was shocking. Sadly I had the option
to play my star player Liam Varnam, but resisted
the urge and played the top four in the next
match.
So there we are in the lift,
seven of us, myself, Roberson, Rendle, Gary O
Grady, Peter Ackley etc etc, when suddenly the
lift stops for 10-12 minutes! The hotel staff
lowered us and forced the doors open. We arrived
five minutes late (for a ten minute game)
against the Met Police. So we were already
handicapped. Rendle offered former British
Champion William Watson a draw which was
declined very quickly, almost as quickly as the
time Rendle then took to destroy the
grandmaster. All three of the remaining boards
won and it was 4-0 against the Police to
celebrate with giving them a five minute head
start.
We were on 19/24, joint first
with Barbican going in to the final round.
Barbican had tie-odds because they had won more
matches and the encounter between the sides. We
won in destructive manner and this led to
another 4-0 victory. Fortunately John Cox who
had 6/6 going in to the last round and was
playing amazingly slipped up against Brown Jack,
leaving the Sons of Anarchy the winning team on
23/28 points.
Tom Rendle 5½/7: RP 240
Peter Roberson 6½/7: RP 250
Ben Purton 5½/6: RP223
Sam Williams 4½/6: RP 212
Liam Varnam 1/2 RP: 200
Thank you to Mike Truran, David,
Peter, Neville and all the other organisers who
sadly ran the event at a loss. It does not
deserve to run at a loss, and it is a shame that
more teams do not show up for the event as it is
an excellent event which has the social
potential to be a sixth 4NCL weekend.
Thanks to Barbican for the kind
words in a very close battle between our sides;
we have not had one of them since I lost my
heavier backers in division 1.
Peter Roberson played incredibly
and is a titled player in the making.
But one man alone stands above
all of the above. I would like to dedicate this
report to Liam David Varnam, who is by far the
best chess car driver I have ever seen. His work
behind the wheel is exceptional. Without his
amazing skills we would not have been able to
win this weekend.
16 October 2011
Much as it pains me to
speak of another's team's success, I thought I'd
be a good sport and report briefly on the
victory of Sons of Anarchy at the Team Rapidplay
yesterday.
As you might guess from the team
name, they were captained by Ben Purton, and
headed by Tom Rendle and Peter Roberson (both
around 230 at rapidplay) with Sam Williams, Liam
Varnam and Ben alternating between boards 3 and
4. Tom and Peter played to form and, I think,
made a plus score against the 4 GMs at the venue
(Watson, Parker, Arkell and Gormally; not to
mention Matt Piper, who made a monster 2850
performance last year and 5½/6 in his other
games this year). SoA also started to rack up
the points on boards 3 and 4 at the end of the
event, enabling them to finish with two 4-0 wins
and to overtake Barbican 1 on gamepoints in the
last round.
You might spare a thought for
Barbican 1, averaging around 225 (Parker, Piper,
Cox and myself) who won every match, and only
lost three games over the boards during the day,
and who probably played up to their average
grade. However, my late arrival led to a default
loss in the first round, an unfortunate event
which always hung over us (given that gamepoints
would decide the outcome) and without a reserve
we also started to drop a bit on the bottom
board at the end of the day, thus allowing
ourselves to be overtaken. I don't actually know
of any other example of a team having 100% on
matchpoints and still losing out on gamepoints -
does anyone else?! But it is true that using
gamepoints does make the event more exciting,
and by only losing 1½-2½ to Barbican 1 in round
3, SoA ensured that they were always in striking
distance - and in the end they duly struck.
In case you are wondering,
Watson played for the Metropolitan Police, and
Arkell and Gormally for Drunken Knights. But
unless I have forgotten someone, there was not
any other GM or even IM than the players
mentioned above, so the competition was much
weaker than last year. It is well known that
entries were down, but perhaps surprisingly, it
was mostly the stronger teams of last year who
did not play this year: Lawrence' s team of GMs,
and Claire's P&P team of even more GMs were
absent, as were the IMs from last year's
Bristol, Cambridge and the Youth team.
I hope the event goes ahead
again - it was impeccably organised this year -
but we shall have to see; one cannot expect
anyone to run a loss-making event.
For some reason, the team event
results are not on the site, but the individual
championship (played today) is being updated!
Arkell and Gormally jointly led after five
rounds and were about to have a shoot-out in
round six.
Well done again to Ben and his
team.
Links to the rapidplay
scores:
4NCL Team results.
4NCL Individual results.
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Further information about the
2011 event is
here.
Slideshow photos above: courtesy
of
Kingpin
Editor, Jon Manley.
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