Tuesday (27th) was the quietest night of 2024 for the club with many on holiday or taking a break and we still had 30 in attendance.
There were several knockout games played. In the Open, Bart Fajfer defeated Martin Burns in the last quarter final and Gintare (Gee) Cross beat David Lambton in the first semi-final. Bart jumps into the final as his next scheduled opponent has left the club due to a career move. This final is due to be played on 24th September.
In the Major knockout, Oskar Jarzynski continued his recent run of form with a win against Ebube Christian in one of the quarters. Meanwhile Neville Layhe and Richard Fish battled to a draw and were too exhausted to play the Armageddon tie breaker, which has been deferred to this week (3rd September). So we have two semi-finalists in the picture (Oskar and Chinenye) and two more to be decided.
In the Inter knockout, it was a positive night for the two youngsters involved in the quarters as Jamie Roberts beat Steve Ballantyne, and Nathan Fourie beat Mike Keenan to complete the semi final line up with Gerald Parton and Julian Bulbeck.
In other news the new season Club Championships got underway with one game played in Division 1. This Tuesday should see a number of games played as we now have four divisions set up. Karl Lockett should be contacting all players to let them know who is in each section and what the colour pairings will be, within the next few days.
Just a reminder that we have our annual Time & Point Handicap for the Les Hall Memorial Trophy on Tuesday 10th September. Please confirm with David Hulme if you can play in this event (or not) which is usually an enjoyable and chaotic evening of Rapid/Blitz chess where any member can be paired up with anyone !
Fixtures for the new league season in the NSDCA should be published in the next few days, where we have 11 teams and matches are likely to start in early October.