Keverel Chess

From Thursday evening, have had a problem uploading pictures into the blog, which has proved impossible to solve in the short term and is b…….y annoying. Just when you have excellent sets of pictures to upload on a daily basis, the beast decides to play up. Feel like Basil Fawlty with his car on Gourmet Night. I’ve even tried whipping the computer repeatedly with a tree branch, but that hasn’t worked either.

Anyway, the final day, Saturday, as always, started at 9.30 a.m., unlike Rounds 1 - 6 which start at 2 p.m. With the 5 Round Morning event out of the way, this allows most folk to finish their games and be on their way home after lunchtime. Unfortunately, the overnight sole leader of the Challengers, a first-timer at Paignton, overlooked this fact and was timed out after 30 minutes. Luckily for him, he was not overtaken in the points tally and still figured in the 1st place tie.

Another tragi-comic event occurred during play, relating to the last round. As players from away vacate their digs, they tend to bring large bags of belongings into the hall for safekeeping. In one corner of the Ballroom, near the top boards in the Premier, about 10 bags were piled up. As the games built up in tension, a phone went off in one of them, but, short of rummaging through each one in turn and looking for name clues, it was difficult to ascertain which bag it was in. Eventually, Tyson Mordue, playing Keith Arkell on top board, called out “Would someone turn off that b……. phone!” But, of course, no one came forward, for to do so would have meant instant disqualification. There may, of course, have been a phone in every bag, so all 10 bag-owners could assume the offender was one of the other 9. The phone finally stopped ringing and peace broke out again.

Arkell had already won the Premier with a round to spare after 6 straight wins, and it would have been easy to settle for a quick draw. But (a) He was playing for pride as, for all his may 1st places, he’s only once before scored a maximum 7/7 at Paignton (b) he needed to bump up his rating and (c) he now only lives round the corner from the venue (in Winner Street would you believe) so it wasn’t like he had a train to catch. The game was indeed drawn, but it was one of the last games to finish and went right down to a rook and scattering of pawns each - Arkell’s strong area, but Mordue played correctly and it ended with no advantage to either side.

Here’s the definitive list of prizewinners:

N.B. All scores out of 7 except for the Boniface morning section.

Slow Starters lost their 1^st two games.

Total prize money totalled around £5,500 and there are further prizes to be awarded - e.g. Best Games (to be decided) and 10 book vouchers each worth £20, drawn by lot.