The annual Blitz Tournament was held this evening (7 May), with 32 entrants. Time handicaps ranging from 5 to 10 minutes were assigned in advance by Tournament Secretary Graham Heath, who couldn’t be present on the night as he was representing the club at a vital Merseyside Chess Association committee meeting.

 

Amongst the players were a variety of club stalwarts and newbies, with Harry Bibby officially joining the club tonight, and Paul Simm accompanying his brothers Steve and Dave for his long-awaited first visit.

 

Running the show were Saul Marks and Craig Jones, and everything went smoothly until Round 1 was to be paired. Once again, the Swiss-Manager system threw up a variety of error messages in a few heart-stopping minutes, before inexplicably co-operating, and play could get underway. Results mostly went as expected, although Trevor Shaw beat Dave Clark and Stuart Rowe beat Chris Latham.

 

In Round 2, Joe Ledgerton beat Steve Simm in a preview of their Premiership playoff semi-final, while Chris Latham flagged again against Prasanna VK.

 

By Round 3, the pattern was being set of waiting for a certain group of smokers to return to the playing hall before play could commence, with Adam Miller always the last to arrive! There were now eight players on two points, and the four who had the black pieces (Steve Pickles, Mike Coffey, Thomas Moran and Richie Kelly) defeated the four who had white (Joe, Phil Owen, Tom Whitby, Terrence Jiang). Dave Simm beat Dave Clark, while Stuart Rowe defeated Steve Simm in a result more often seen when they go bowling than when they play chess! Young Ro Ford also picked up his first win, beating Paul Simm.

 

Next came the raffle, with 32 tickets having been bought. One of the two prizes on offer was a blue and white glass chess set donated by Paul Greenway, while the other was a large, beautiful but slightly damaged wooden board, donated by Trevor Shaw. Seth Marks was again given the honour of operating the draw machine, which promptly produced his own ball as the winner! Insisting against Saul’s argument that the family needed neither of the prizes to add to their collection, he chose the blue and white glass set.

 

The farce then deepened when the winner of the draw for Trevor’s wooden board was none other than Trevor himself!! When the laughter had died down, the draw was repeated and Steve Pickles’ ball was produced.

 

Seb Chesworth departed, leaving Paul Simm with a bye in Round 4. Steve Pickles beat Thomas Moran and Richie beat Mike Coffey, while Stuart picked up another massive scalp of Phil Owen.

 

In the final round, Steve defeated Richie in the shootout of the two undefeated players to secure the trophy with a faultless score of 5/5, having never left board 1 all night. It could be added that the club’s long-standing tradition of pairing the strongest entrant with the weakest in Round 1 gives that strong player an advantage when the software pairs players according to standard rules but, when the strongest player is 200 points higher than his nearest rival, it’s somewhat academic!

 

Notable results in the last round were Sam Bakhshian’s defeat of Alan Jackson and Seth’s defeat of Ro in an all-Birkenhead School affair. Freddy Powell beat Kenny Hampson and Prasanna beat Paul Simm, while Menai had the bye to finish without anything to show for her night’s toil.

 

The main tournament then concluded at just after 9.45pm, having completed five rounds of play in just over two hours.

 

What became apparent during the last round was that five players were likely to finish in joint second place, on 4/5, which they duly did. These were Joe, Terrence, Thomas, Tom and Richie. A consultation was held and it was agreed to hold a five-way round-robin tournament with a reduced time-control of 4 minutes each. Saul and Craig dispensed with the software for this phase of the evening and worked out the round-robin pairings with good old pen and paper!

 

In the first round, Richie had the bye and both results were draws, with Thomas failing to beat Tom again in their second game of the evening. In Round 2, Terrence had the bye, Thomas beat Richie and Tom beat Joe. In Round 3, Thomas had the bye, Joe beat Richie and Tom beat Terrence. This left Richie without a point and Tom leading with 2½ out of 3.

 

It was then Tom’s turn to take the bye, while Terrence took revenge on Richie for his only defeat, earlier in the evening. Thomas beat Joe in a very quick result, leaving Joe to head home before his first GCSE exam in the morning. Terrence beat Richie in the other game.

 

In the final round, Tom beat Richie and Thomas beat Terrence. The final table was propped by Richie, who failed to score a point against much younger opposition, with Joe and Terrence finishing on 1½ points. But, incredibly, Tom and Thomas both remained unbeaten and inseparable on 3½ points.

 

They therefore had to play for the third time this evening, this time with a further reduced time control of 3 minutes, with Thomas prevailing once again, courtesy of an illegal move.

 

So, finally, at 10.50pm, it was established that Thomas Moran was the tournament runner-up and Tom Whitby finished third.

 

All in all, despite the best efforts of the technology to thwart us, it was another successful and enjoyable evening. Many thanks to Kenny Hampson who arrived early to help Craig, Saul and Seth set up (later aided by some others), and to the small group of members who took charge of setting clocks for those unable to do so (or who had set their clocks to seven hours rather than seven minutes!).