Anyway, enough of the preliminaries, the first few rounds seemed to have less shocks than some of the previous editions, and in this calm state it looked as if the Round 4 showdown between the top two seeds, Michael Waters and Steve Scannell, would decide the winner.
Throughout the evening, I had become aware of rock music seeping through the windows but it was very difficult to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It was almost as if Chris Millar, fabled promoter of the quick chess-background music combination, was influencing events. When I raised this conundrum with the Sultan, Ballynafeigh's eminence grise, he informed me that the music was drifting over from the other big event of the evening in Belfast, an open air concert being given by the Foo Fighters to 30,000 fans in Boucher Road.
Back in our own little Nirvana, things had taken an unexpected turn. Scannell had beaten Waters in the battle of the giants and general expectation was that he would go on serenely to take the top prize. But we had reckoned without Stephen Morgan, making his debut in the Ballynafeigh Super Series. After a theoretical Gruenfeld Defence (something of a rarity in Ulster chess) Scannell seemed to have Morgan in a spot of bother in the endgame (two bishops, passed pawn) but the latter had other ideas, creating a passed pawn of his own which was to cost Scannell one of his bishops and ultimately the game. When I mentioned to Scannell that he seemed to have lost a theoretically won ending, he good-naturedly put this patzer in his place by telling me I needed to study some of the 1990 World Championship Gruenfeld endgames before making such sweeping statements.
So instead of a single winner and a nice easy prize allocation, we had four players tied first. Oh, dear, only two main prizes to give out, so recourse had to be made to the dreaded tie-breaks. Unfortunately for the gallant Morgan, the tie-break placed him third and therefore out of the prizes. Scannell had just hung on for first with Waters second. Ian Woodfield, who had beaten Super Series One winner Damien Lavery in the final round in a flurry of hands moving pieces and pressing clock-levers, was fourth in this tie-break evaluation but had the considerable consolation of winning the under 1900 Grading Prize.
The other two Grading Prizes also went to tie-break with Niall Troughton just edging out Tony Redden for the under 1600 Section with Ram Rajan marginally ahead of John Monaghan in the under 1300s. In what I hope is a small consolation for missing out in a prize by the slimmest of margins in each case, our three unlucky tie-break losers were offered free entry next time they come to a Ballynafeigh-organised event. Hopefully, we can give them that opportunity next Summer when, all other things being equal, the Beard and I plan to run the Super Series again. However, before that comes around, we are hoping to do something in October before the league season starts, something a little different which hopefully will be sufficiently interesting to attract our faithful participants back to the Ormeau Road. Look our for details here or at the Ballynafeigh CC website (or possibly a personal e-mail from the Beard himself).
Having finished the prizegiving and made a desultory attempt to help in putting away the tables and chairs, it was time to wend my way home. As I drove up the Malone Road and then on to Balmoral Avenue and Stockmans Lane I passed many happy concert-goers walking home from their night-out listening to Dave Grohl and co. Hopefully our own little events have given our paying customers an equally good time.
No Name Rtg Total 1 2 3 4 5 Prize 1 Stephen Scannell 2046 4 12:W 15:W 4:W 2:W 3:L First 2 Michael Waters 2132 4 5:W 23:W 3:W 1:L 6:W Second 3 Stephen Morgan 1969 4 17:W 6:W 2:L 7:W 1:W 4 Ian Woodfield 1689 4 9:W 8:W 1:L 13:W 5:W Grading U1900 5 Damien Lavery 1725 3 2:L 13:W 11:W 10:W 4:L 6 Damien Cunningham 1649 3 16:W 3:L 15:W 14:W 2:L 7 Gareth Annesley 1921 3 0:D 16:W 8:W 3:L 9:D 8 Mark Newman 1781 3 10:W 4:L 7:L 19:W 18:W 9 Eamonn Walls 1954 3 4:L 18:D 14:W 25:W 7:D 10 John McKenna 1633 3 8:L 19:W 23:W 5:L 21:W 11 Niall Troughton 1562 3 15:L 12:W 5:L 16:W 17:W Grading U1600 12 John Bradley 1723 3 1:L 11:L 22:W 27:W 20:W 13 Tony Redden 1537 3 22:W 5:L 26:W 4:L 15:W 14 Mathew Chapman 1345 2.5 26:W 17:D 9:L 6:L 24:W 15 Danny Mallaghan 1780 2 11:W 1:L 6:L 22:W 13:L 16 Desmond Moreland 1801 2 6:L 7:L 19:W 11:L 27:W 17 Sam Flanagan 1706 2 3:L 14:D 20:W 18:D 11:L 18 Steven Eachus 1546 2 23:L 9:D 21:W 17:D 8:L 19 Colin Fenton 1356 2 27:W 10:L 16:L 8:L 25:W 20 William Storey 1329 2 24:D 25:W 17:L 21:D 12:L 21 Ram Rajan 2 25:D 24:W 18:L 20:D 10:L Grading U1300 22 John Monaghan 1110 2 13:L 27:W 12:L 15:L 26:W 23 Callum Ormerod 1756 2 18:W 2:L 10:L 26:W 0: 24 Paul Anderson 671 1.5 20:D 21:L 25:L 0:W 14:L 25 Gary Johnston 1167 1.5 21:D 20:L 24:W 9:L 19:L 26 Paul Logan 1007 1 14:L 0:W 13:L 23:L 22:L 27 Patrick Magee 1039 1 19:L 22:L 0:W 12:L 16:L
