Today has seen the club’s 2nd Rapid-play congress take place at the local Ibis Styles Hotel with 91 players in attendance, a 10% increase on our first RP congress last year. This year featured a longer competition over 7 rounds.
The Open Section with 16 players had a star-studded cast including one GM, two IMs and one FM. The club’s sole representative in this section was Bart Fajfer, ranked 9th. After a 1st round defeat to the top seeded GM, Bart went on to score a superb 4pts and finish joint 4th.
The Major Section for grades U165 had 25 entries. The Club’s contingent of 3 (Hulme, Renegade and Barnett) all had a disappointing day finishing 19th and below.
The Intermediate Section for grade U135 had 19 entries including 4 from the club. Simon Layhe was our most successful player to score 5.5 pts and finish joint 2nd. Simon’s dad Neville scored a creditable 4pts to finish joint 5th. This is a superb effort when you consider that Neville is our Congress Administator and without him the club could not host such an event. Our other players Karl Lockett and Dave Price both scored 3 pts.
The Minor Section for grade U105 had the most entries with 32 including 4 of our own players. Our players all featured in the top half of the final placings with Nigel Gardner finishing joint 1st with 5.5pts and being unbeaten on the day (W4, D3) having started as 17th seed ! Junior Lukasz Michalek and one of our recent recruits George Jellis scored 4.5 pts to finish joint 6th having being ranked at No. 19 and 20 respectively. Our remaining entrant Kobus Nienaber finished above his rank in joint 15th with 3.5 pts.