We’ve had a couple of busy and interesting evenings this week with Round 6 of the 4NCL Online League, a rescheduled League Fixture brought forward and progress in two of our internal tournaments.
Tuesday night (2nd) saw the AOL team play East Kilbride Strollers in division 3 of the 4NCL online league, while the BOL team faced St Andrews White Cross in division 4. Due to a mix up with instructions, two of our games were played with slightly incorrect time limits of 45 mins/10 secs increments instead of the intended 45/15. This only came to our notice after games had been completed and where under normal FIDE rules the results would stand, the 4NCL rules instruct that games be scored as 0-0. The upshot of this is that our A team have been awarded a 2-1 win, when a 2-2 draw would be fairer and the B team have been penalised with a 2-1 defeat when the score should have been 2-2. We have decided to appeal against the 4NCL rule in the interests of fair play, and await their response. The actual games themselves saw David Hulme and Simon Layhe win for the AOL team, while Dave Price and Kobus Nienaber won for BOL, but Kobus result has been scored as 0-0 to date.
The AOL team look likely to avoid finishing in the relegation slots for the first time in four seasons, while the BOL team are 3rd in their group but unlikely to make it into the top two promotion slots, with one more round to play before the play-offs commence.
Wednesday night saw another full house at The Mals with 29 members present including a couple of new faces. Centre stage was taken by the league clash between the A & B team. The teams have been arranged so they are all closely rated overall, and on this occasion the A team were slightly higher. First game to finish saw a draw on board 4 as Kobus (A team) drew with Steve Ballantyne, before Reinhard Haack put the Bees in the ascendancy on board 5. The board 2 game ended in deadlock as David Lambton (acting as an A team substitute) held Simon Layhe. The decisive result came on board 3 where James Marshall won to ensure the B team would go top of the early season table. It was left to A team skipper Martin Burns to salvage some pride for his team as he put opposition skipper David Hulme to the sword as the last game finished just after News at Ten had concluded.
The Bees get chance to extend their lead next Wednesday when they face the D team, but no doubt captain Nigel Gardner will come up with a Devilish Deal to Derail the Bees.
With another pack of games played in the Winter Internal Division 1 and 2 sections there was a top of the table clash in division 1, where Karl Lockett was able to take the lead with a win that takes his score to 4/5, with Doug Barnett (3/6) and Jarek Czyz (1/3) also victorious.
Division 2 saw leader Nigel Gardner extend the gap with another point to take his tally to 5.5/6, and George Bulbeck cementing his 3rd position to move to 3/4.