East team enjoy last gasp win.

Three teams of 12 players representing the East, South and Western areas of Devon met at the Newton Abbot club on Sunday to compete in their annual jamboree.

The East gambled somewhat in playing the highly-graded John Stephens, and compensated for this by fielding a number of humbler players at the other end of the team. This tactic almost rebounded on them, as Stephens was well-beaten in the biggest upset of the afternoon, while none of the lower grades lost. Added to this, they defaulted one board as one player failed to turn up.

However, everything went down to the last game to finish, between Hewson and Brusey, which went to the last few seconds of extra time. Hewson had a knight + 3 pawns against a rook + 3, with the pressure on Brusey to look for a win as he was materially ahead, but with only seconds left on both clocks, it was Brusey’s that fell first, allowing the East to leapfrog the West.

However, by this time, three-quarters of the East team had already left for home, and so missed the dramatic denoument.

Organiser Trefor Thynne thanked all those concerned in the smooth running of the event; his wife Lyudmila and her colleague for providing an excellent tea and Bill Frost for controlling. Alan Crickmore reciprocated by thanking Trefor for his hospitality.

At the outset, Trefor had introduced to the assembled players, local schoolboy, John Fraser, who had recently been selected to represent England in the World Junior Championships in Greece, later in the year. Only the previous day, he had launched an appeal for donations to off-set the considerable financial costs his family would have to meet in taking up this offer, and within 24 hours it had already raised several hundred pounds. Anyone interested in contributing to this fund should contact Trefor on 01626-337876.

NB: Players graded under 100, are deemed to be 100 for the purposes of this event.

Morrison defaulted.

General view of play, with Hewson vs Brusey in foreground

General view with White vs Wilkinson in foreground.

Bd. 1 - Richard Pollock (Plymouth) vs John Stephens (Exmouth).

Last game to finish - Hewson (Tiverton) vs Brusey (Teignmouth).

Megan O'Brien (Plymouth) the only lady player present vs John Knowles (Tiverton)

England junior international, John Fraser.