Apologies for the late composure of this note as February has already kicked off with about 10 games played last night, on top of the 3 league matches. I am increasingly awestruck as the club grows in popularity as underlined last night. We had 58 of our members at the club (including several potential newbies) even when many of the regular juniors were absent.
Starting with the top section – division 1 – and the potential Club Champion. It seems Harry is determined as ever to retain the prestigious title as he continues on his merry way. His dominance is highlighted with his current score of 8/9 (unbeaten again so far) being way ahead of second place – Andy Raeburn on 4.5/9. It seems everyone is determined to help Harry as we keep taking points off each other. The only exceptions to this are Carmel (2/2) and returning member Jim Grange (1.5/2), but it is difficult to see how they can catch the runaway leader. The scrap to avoid relegation currently has the original No.1 seed at the bottom of the pack – showing how competitive this tournament has become !
Division 2 sees George Bulbeck leading the way as he attempts to improve on last season’s 3rd position to try and regain his spot in the 1st division. George has a narrow advantage (4/5) over 2nd place Kumar (3.5/5). With five of the 13 players having only played one game, they will find increasingly difficult to catch up. The bottom of the table sees last season’s 3rd division promoted player yet to notch up any points, showing the jump in standards/rating between the sections.
In division 3 Phil Grocott maintains the lead with a superb 6.5/7 and a current tourney rating of 1687. H team captain Tim Weston is his closest rival with 4.5/6 just ahead of Mal Green 4/6 and Steve Ballantyne 4/7. Three players sit at the foot of the table with only 1/2 point on the scoreboard to date, so there is likely to be a lot of tension in the run-in. With Pete Kanalos not seen at the club for some time they all need to overtake his single point to be safe.
Division 4 continues to be led by two of our summer recruits. Simon Humphries with 7/9 is being chased by Sam Ollier 6/7, with Sam having the upper hand due to his win in the head to head. Gerald Parton with 5.5/8 has yet to play Sam so their game could be vital in deciding who wins the division. Youngster Jack Patullo is the only player to defeat Sam so far and with 4/6 could yet feature in the promotion race. Based on current ratings the leading 4 players in this division are all higher rated than 6 of the Div 3 players, so there will likely be a sizeable restructure at the end of this season in addition to the automatic promotion/relegation places.
Division 5 continues to provide a solid grounding for newcomers to the club. Having started with 13 players it has now expanded to 17. Barrie Wood another of our Summer recruits has dominated this section until recently. With 11/15 and just one more game scheduled, there will be an anxious wait to see if anyone can catch him. 2nd placed Andrew Caccamo has returned to the club after a year out and is closing the gap now having scored 8/10 with Mayank Patil hot on Andrew’s heels in 3rd place (6/8) and yet to play Andrew. Several other players have only dropped a couple of points so could easily appear as contenders, but have played many less games than Barrie. Most pleasing is watching the number of members joining in this competition with most recent additions being Jasper Ludlow, Richard Berrisford, Jo Estridge and Wallace Hung.
Over the last 3 weeks of January we had average attendances of 56 members, plus visting teams ensuring there is always lots going on at the club. The latest count shows we now have 84 members with a possible 10 more in the pipeline having visited the club since 1st January !!