High speed chess

I dropped in at the Maynard Sinclair Pavilion towards the end of the 3rd NICS Rapidplay and was witness to some high velocity activity. Hoping to take some photographs of the beginning of the final round, I had positioned myself beside the top boards. Immediately after my first attempt, I heard Adrian Dornford Smith say sorry to me for having moved across my sightline. He kindly posed for a close-up to make amends.

However when I checked the "spoiled" pic, there was no sign of Adrian, just a very blurry image. Has Adrian discovered how to move faster than the speed of light? Unlike Adrian, physics is not my strong point but I seem to remember there was once a theory that if you ran backwards sufficiently quickly you could travel back in time. It appears fast-draw Ferguson has been working on this.

Here Drew (spot his speedy right hand) is just completing his journey backwards in time to a point where Ian Woodfield has played his first move but is yet to press his clock. Meanwhile Paul Anderson and Mike Redman are trying to work out what has just happened with their clock display.

Anyway, back to a more conventional report: top seed Redman put in a blitzkrieg of his own on his six opponents to finish with a 100% score. Here's the final standings direct from the Controller's laptop (BTW Mark, ever thought of cleaning the screen?)

Click on the photos to get full-size images

More musings on the Leagues

To postpone or not to postpone
And what should the penalty be?

Fisherwick still go on their imperious way in Division 1, but Lindores continue to dog their footsteps. Their recent drawn encounter at the East Belfast coffee house still leaves everything to play for. Lindores are definitely pulling out all the stops - not content with dragging former Williamson Shield winner Fred MacDonald from retirement to fill Board 3, they then found another person to fill that space - no less than 2012 Ulster Masters champion Alan Delaney, who seems to have been carelessly left unattended by another Belfast club.

Still, to get back to the question at the top: a little of the momentum has gone out of the top tier with the recent postponements of Muldoon's v. Lindores and Fisherwick v. Ballynafeigh 2. Our local players are not professionals and there will be occasions when ordinary life gets in the way and a team captain is left scrambling about for players. However the default position ought to be that if you can get 5 bodies out, whatever their standard, the match must go ahead.

There will be occasions when a team captain really can't get a full squad out, and the Controller will consider it reasonable to grant a postponement. However, just to make sure these occasions are few and far between, should there not be some sort of penalty for an "offending" team? Might I suggest that the team responsible for the postponement shall not be entitled to any bonus match points when the match is eventually played.

One more suggestion: if the Controller agrees to a match postponement, in the spirit of openness and transparency, he should place the reason for it on the official UCU website.