|
3Cs secured their survival
easily enough by winning all three matches in
the final weekend to top the relegation pool, by
virtue of adding a second GM. whether it is one
GM or two seems to make a big difference to 3Cs:
with two regulars they can trouble all but the
very best, as they did in 2016/7 when they
finished fourth, but otherwise they can struggle
and they were very fortunate that their weakest
team of the season, in the first weekend, came
across the especially weak version of Midland
Monarchs.
The impression one gets is that,
with the possibility of calling in
reinforcements should the need arise, 3Cs don't
worry too much in the early season about
relegation risks, which is all very well but
perhaps a bit surprising from the team which
once got relegated despite two of their players
making GM norms during the season (2006/7).
Promotion to the first division
had not been on the agenda in 2017/2018 and a
string of first team absences left the team
adrift after the first weekend of the season.
But the win against a representative Grantham
Sharks side in the second weekend was a turning
point and from then onwards there was something
to cheer in every weekend; had they anticipated
the relatively weak Manx Liberty side in March,
then a dramatic late bid for the championship
pool would even have been possible.
Many more FM's were found, to
support this effort, but the team was never
quite flooded with them, and many of the players
who had played regularly in the second division
continued to play. A quick glance at the table
1d, i.e. the matches which most mattered to the
team's survival bid, reveals that FM Jonah
Willow was their star player, and he must have
been high up on the long list of Wood Green
players gunning for norms.
Not quite the dramatic escape
performed by Blackthorne Russia in 2013/14, but
creditable nonetheless. They started as number
eight seeds (having finished seventh in 2017/18,
and allocated eight position on account of Manx
Liberty's strength) and so "ought" to have been
the team which finished fourth. But they did not
find their form and also found no easy pickings
in Pool B, and things went from bad to worse
after the loss to Midland Monarchs.
Worse still, one of their two
draws in pool B was "lost" when Blackthorne
Russia made it to the championship pool, and so
they started the relegation pool with just one
draw - but like Blackthorne in 2013/14, proceeded
to win all four matches in the reconstituted
pool, assisted by foreign GM power in the final
weekend.
James Holland proved to be a
reliable point scorer lower down the team but
could not always be used by the first team
because of an ever graver crisis in the second
team.
For all of that, if their form
can be rediscovered, they might be the most
likely team between 9-12th this year to make
their way to the championship pool next year.
Survived in division one for the first time,
at their second attempt. For all the
newsletters, it is not obvious why to me why
they did not field their top players the last
time they played in division one (though they
twice deployed them in division two). Nor do I
quite know how so many of them came to be
staying in Shrewsbury in the last weekend, which
almost led to mass defaults in the crucial last
round - most 4NCL captains spend enough of their
time worrying about traffic and car breakdowns
on the Saturday of every 4NCL weekend, without
adding other days into the mix. But they did deserve their survival, and were
the early talking point of division one after
wins over Blackthorne Russia and 3Cs, before
they lost momentum after their defeat to the
resurgent Midland Monarchs. With the lost
momentum in mind as well, things must have
seemed grim on the final Monday morning when
they started 2-0 down on account of the
transport-related default.
A loss would have spelt relegation, on
account of Oxford's win, but luckily for them
North East England did not rise to the occasion,
and agreed a draw in a good position in board
two and unaccountably declined to play 20 Nxd5
and 21 Bc4 on board three. With big positions
achieved early on boards one and six, the Tigers
were soon to breathe more easily.
Oxford had had a nice time of it
since being repromoted to division one in
2013/14. They ought to have been relegated again
during that season, but finished 13th and were
reprieved after the withdrawal of Wood Green 2.
That enabled them to keep their star junior,
Justin Tan, and together with other
reinforcements (e.g. soon-to -be IM David
Martins from Portugal) even managed to be in the
championship pool in 2014/15 and again in
2017/18. (They would have been regarded as
number nine seeds this year, incidentally,
which, had they lived up to it, would have made
the starting pools look more evenly balanced).
But last year's success papered
over the cracks; it had been achieved despite
the recruitment of Marcus Harvey by Wood Green,
and over the summer of 2018 Wood Green added
Justin Tan to their Oxford check out basket
while Martins returned to Portugal. As fate
would have it, their first match of the season
was against Wood Green, and even a weakened Wood
Green side made 7-1 with worrying ease. But
Oxford showed considerable determination in a
difficult season. An eighth round win against
relegation rivals in Celtic Tigers gave real
prospects of survival after all, but that
pairing meant that they had to cope with both a
reinforced 3Cs and a reinforced Grantham Sharks
in the last weekend and that proved too much.
They won to order in the last round against
Midland Monarchs, but by then they had to rely
on Celtic Tigers slipping up again. That they
did - see above - but unfortunately for Oxford,
North East England were in no state to take
advantage.
Prospects for immediate
repromotion: more likely than not.
The other team from the original
Pool A which immediately made a surprise win in
round eight against one of the Pool B teams,
namely 3Cs themselves. This was a timely pairing
(given the likelihood of 3Cs being stronger in
the final weekend) but it would have made more
difference if Oxford had benefited fom it: West
is Best carried just one draw from its three
matches in Pool A and still had too much to do,
making just one draw in the final weekend. Name
change notwithstanding, basically every player
in the first team in the final weekend had come
from the original South Wales Dragons team and
relegation marked the extended stay of the
Dragons in division one from the start of the
2014/15 season, during which they too were once
reprieved (having finished 13th in 2014/5 but
saved by the late withdrawal of the e2e4 team)
and benefited from the recruitment of Katarzyna
Toma. Had everyone made the same results on
other boards as Dragons stalwart Sven Zeidler on
board eight, all would have been fine after all.
Prospects for immediate
repromotion: they have a number of able but
slightly offbeat players who are well suited to
division two. They could win virtually every
game on board eight for starters, and the
question is rather whether they will win the
division.
To be honest, I have been
impressed that NE England have twice earned
promotion from the second division and I had
rather expected them to finish lower in this
year's first division (well, it's true; they
even somehow managed to lose Tim Wall in the
process of repromotion). They then had an
excellent pool A, beating West is Best and
bringing two other draws with them to the final
relegation pool; where, alas they were roughly
treated by the teams from Pool B. Their best
chance was in round nine when they took
advantage from a remarkable lapse from Peter
Roberson to give a close match to Grantham, and
Lynda Smith added an impressive win on board
eight, but Grantham's Peter Batchelor's neat
43...e3 on board five dashed their last hopes.
They seemed ready to go home by the last round:
Celtic Tigers could hardly have dreamed of such
compliant opposition in their own difficult
circumstances.
Prospects for immediate
repromotion: do they even want it? Their good
results against the teams coming down with them
and previous successful promotion attempts give
cause for encouragement, but there seem to be a
number of stronger division two teams, e.g.
Anglian Avengers and ADs, waiting to compete
with them as well.
There are generally few
surprises by the very end of a 4NCL season.
Perhaps Alba finishing last counts as the
greatest surprise this season. They had just
survived in twelfth place last year, but it had
been their first year in division one, and the
addition of Manx Liberty could, from their
perspective. be somehow compensated for in
"relegation battle" terms by the weakening of
Oxford. They too scored a win and two draws
against the other teams in Pool a who followed
them into the relegation pool, though they would
presumably have hoped for more; and they too
were roughly treated by the teams joining the
pool from pool B. The crucial loss was, again,
that against Celtic Tigers, in round 10, where
they got off to the worst possible start by
losing quickly with the Kings Gambit White on
board two. The off beat opening on board seven
(1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nd2 Qb6) seemed to qualify as
one which is "no good even when it works" but
luckily a draw was still on offer. And this was
their best match of the weekend. The match might
have been saved on board five, where Alba had an
extra pawn in the ending, but the Magnus Carlsen
knack hasn't filtered down that far just yet,
and Alba really needed to win anyway.
Prospects for immediate
repromotion: very likely, indeed possible
champions of division two if the same team
continues.
|
