Keverel Chess

Exmouth’s first match of the new season was against Tiverton in the Newman Cup, a RapidPlay match in which two 1 hour games are played against the same opponent with colours reversed for the 2nd game. With a total grade limit of 599, Exmouth fielded a combination of their 2 strongest players and 2 untried but promising newcomers. Tiverton, on the other hand, fielded 4 players all about the same strength in spite of the differences in their rapidplay grades.

Exmouth’s experiment back-fired big style, as 3 of the 4 players failed to register anything, and only John Stephens’ 2 wins preserved a fig-leaf of credibility.

Picture below shows Bd. 4 nearest the camera.

Exmouth (r) vs Tiverton - start of play.