Keverel Chess

Posts Tagged ‘Paignton Congress 2014’

At the start of the final round, there was a tie between the five top-rated players in the Premier Section, - Gormally, Arkell, Ledger, Mackle & Bates - all on 4.5/6. Any one of the 5 could win it outright, while other possibilities included double ties, triple ties or, if they all drew, a 5-way tie. The possibilities ran into double digits, and the only certainty was that would be no quick draws in this round.

The pairings were Arkell vs Mackle; Bates vs Gormally and McKenna vs Ledger. Arkell played an open game and managed at several points in the game to create small threats, forcing Mackle to exchange pieces, and it wasn’t long before an endgame was reached, an aspect of the game in which Arkell is an acknowledged master. With R+2 minor pieces each left on the board, Black at least had some activity, but he chose to exchange off the rooks, after which White had most of the attacking options and Mackle resigned. Arkell could relax as the leader in the clubhouse and watch the other three slug it out. He relaxed even more when Bates and Gormally agreed a draw. This left Ledger fighting for a win in order to share 1st prize. And strive he did as the game went on for hour after hour, finishing long after the room was empty of players. After 6 hours play, McKenna avoided a loss on time at the 2nd time control by seconds, and it went down to R vs R+P. The pawn was on the a-file, protected by K + R and far away from the White king, but McKenna managed to find just enough resources to prevent the queening, so a draw was agreed. Thus Arkell, the Paignton veteran, won his 20th 1st place in the 22 consecutive years he’s entered - doubly pleasing for him.

The second-to-last game to finish was Bd. 1 in the Challengers, where Mike Waddington, who had 6/6 points and had already won the section with a round to spare, was trying very hard to make it a clean sweep. But he was faced by the ever-steady Martin Page who had no intentions of falling in with his plans, and after many hours play, a draw was agreed. Although he failed in his bid for a 100% score, he finished with the highest score by any player in any section.

The full prize list was as follows.

NB: Grading prize winners do not quaify for a prize in a higher section, even though they might have a higher score.

The state of play after Rd. 6 in the Premier

The draw for the final round in the Premier.

Top board: Bates vs Gormally - destined for a draw.

Mackle starts White's clock - game on!

Final round draw for the Challengers.

Mike Waddington, who has already won the Challengers Section, wants to make it a perfect score but is faced by the redoubtable Martin Page.

So pleasant is the weather, post-game analysis can be held in the hotel gardens

This is the time when the finishing line starts to beckon for both the 5 Rd. morning sections and the main event in the afternoons.

However, before the serious stuff got under way at 2 p.m. there was an amusing diversion. It has become a little tradition at Paignton that any regular competitor who reaches the grand old age of 90 gets a presentation book. This year it was the turn of John G. Sowerby who passed this particular milestone a few days ago. He had the pick of the bookstall to choose from, and opted for a copy of Arkell’s Odyssey, as he felt it was a bit late in life for him to wrestling with some heavy tome on the openings. He agreed to be present at the start of the afternoon round, even though he was only playing in the mornings. Unknown to him it was arranged that Keith himself should present John with a signed copy, to a round of generous applause. Immediately, then, Keith was himself surprised that it was announced that he had recently won the vote for the ECF’s Player of the Year award, by a country mile - again, to generous applause.

Then the focus was back on John. At the start of play on Tuesday morning, John got him game under way but slowly became aware that all was not well on the board. By move 8 the players realised that John’s king and queen were on the wrong squares. But not before the photographs were taken, and if one looks closely at the final photograph on the previous entry, one can just make this out. Young Theo Slade and his father went to some trouble to crop the picture, blow up the image of John at the board, print off a nice copy and frame it for presentation to him at this moment. A photograph of the three players involved was taken outside shortly after.

John Sowerby with Keith Arkell (l) and Theo Slade.

The long-promised better weather finally arrived and allowed post-game analysis to be carried on outside.