NICS Rapidplay series resumes

Apart from a few games with the computer I hadn't played a game of chess, competitive or otherwise, for some time. My last tournament chess dated back to the 2013-4 season, when I played in a couple of Rapidplays, organised by my own club - Civil Service (NICS). Not without considerable qualms about my form, I decided to re-enter the arena on familiar ground at the first of four quickplays in the 2016-7 NICS Alan Burns Grand Prix.

NICS have two speed settings for their rapid tournaments and this was the slower "Lackadaisical" - five games of 20 minutes, plus 5 second increment, each. The entrants were remarkably closely bunched together on rating - so there were likely to be plenty of close-fought games.

Controller Mark Newman played in Round one to avoid a bye, but when David Jackson arrived shortly after the start, he was allocated a half-point bye and from Round 2 Mark was able to fully concentrate on his administrative duties. These took an unusual turn in Round 3 when a loud voice at the door demanded entry. When Mark opened the door he was confronted by a young man wielding a cutlass. Mark defused the situation by firmly indicating the potential intruder could not come in because this was a chess tournament. The pirate then returned with his plastic sword to the children's party happening elsewhere in the Maynard Sinclair Pavilion.

Woodfield (White) v Jackson

Returning to the chess battles: after two rounds only the first and third seeds, John Bradley and Robert Lavery had full points. Their top board encounter in Round 3 was won by Robert and after he won again in the fourth round against Ram Rajan, he was a full point ahead with only Bradley capable of catching him.

Gould (White) v Bradley, Rajan watching on

In the final round, a quick draw between Lavery and Daniil Zelenchuk secured overall victory for Robert and gave Daniil good chances of taking the grading prize. Martin Kelly was still in with a chance of the GP, if he could beat Ian Woodfield. Martin went the exchange up but a hasty move, failing to protect a vital pawn, was his undoing, and he slowly went under in a knight and pawns endgame. Meanwhile the host club's David Jackson defied his lowly seeding to checkmate Bradley and take second place honours.

Troughton (White) v Kelly

NICS Lackadaisical Rapidplay, 11 December 2016
Final standings

Place Name             Rtg  Club          Score Prize

  1   Robert Lavery    1539 Ballynafeigh  4.5   First
  2   David Jackson    1374 NICS          3.5   Second
 3-5  John Bradley     1629 Ballynafeigh  3     
      Richard Gould    1517 Belfast South 3    
      Daniil Zelenchuk 1484 Ballynafeigh  3     Under 1500
  6   Ian Woodfield    1502 QUB           2.5  
 7-9  Ram Rajan        1532 QUB           2    
      Martin Kelly     1456 Belfast South 2    
      David McAlister  1455 NICS          2    
10-11 William Storey   1279 Belfast South 1.5  
      Dmitry Zelenchuk 1147 Ballynafeigh  1.5  
12-13 Niall Troughton  1583 Ballynafeigh  1    
      Mark Newman      1522 NICS          1   

Prizewinners (l to r) Zelenchuk, Lavery & Jackson

Rookie reports from the seaside

" Bourne" Again in Bournemouth?

Having finished second recently in the Winter Belfast South, City of Belfast and Spring Ballynafeigh tournaments, Martin Kelly decided to have a go at the British Chess Championship after a quarter of a century's absence. He had won the under-1600 event in Brighton in 1984 and this year it was held in another lovely and lively seaside resort on the English south coast, Bournemouth. He entered a weekend event and a weekday event, held in the mornings which allowed one to do other things the rest of the day, including karaoke (but I don't want to make a "song and dance" about it)!

As the bottom seed, Martin got a bye in Round 1 of the weekender, then met Peter Harrington in Round 2. The latter started off well but later he was to "peter" out to a draw. Round 3 gave Martin a slight edge against Michael Davidson but he didn't take the "michael" out of it- so another draw. His last two opponents were both 1520. The first, Nigel Redmond, lost to Martin in 58 moves- a "Nigel long" game rather than a Nigel Short game! The second, Paul Collins, played an "appaulingly" quiet line against Martin's Marshall Attack, but the resulting draw gave Martin 3.5/5 and third place overall.

"Life's a beach" but the Bournemouth weather encouraged one to relax near the water's edge and encourage one to kick the proverbial sand in the chess bullies' faces- so Martin, anxious to to win more than draw in the weekday tournament, decided to "force it in Dorset"! Again he met Peter Harrington, who this time played more like Padraig Harrington (if Padraig was playing chess, I mean) in losing to Martin's Budapest! Round 2 opponent was second seed Julian Hawthorne(1544)-" a thorny" set of complications by Martin meant he couldn't see the " wood from the trees" and lost! Exhausted next day against Alastair Drummond, Martin "summoned" all his energy, but it wasn't there and a 13 move draw resulted! Just as well, because the next game on Board 2 was the last to finish in the whole venue- 5 hour, 112 move win by Martin, "packing them" in against ex-Dubliner John Pakenham! The last day on top board against John D. Clapp,the top seed, saw Martin's French Advanced line pressurise his worthy opponent with the unfortunate name, but after a 37 move draw, " D. Clapp" from the audience was much appreciated as Martin clinched second prize ( and yes, that was the clean joke)! All in all, with 2 prizes and an unbeaten run of 9 games, I'm looking forward next year to Llandudno with the whole family- even though the "clan dudno" where it is or how to spell it!

PS Graeme McCormick got 5 out of 10 in the under 1880 and under 2040 events!

New tournament, new websites

Nearly all of the local clubs close over the summer at the end of the Belfast Leagues. For many years now the UCU has catered for a continuing demand for competitive chess by running the Summer Tournament, originally at the Maynard Sinclair Pavilion on the Stormont Estate and more recently at the Bankers' Club on the Malone Road.

The Summer Tournament lasts for about 20 weeks with one round each Wednesday evening. It is a so-called "flexible" tournament - players dip in and out of the competition as often or as little as they want, with prizes based on percentage scores. There are a number of organisational rules peculiar to the flexible format, the most important probably being the requirement to play a minimum of games to be eligible for a prize. Pairings are made on the night with players allocated as far as possible opponents of roughly equal strength.

The only trouble with the Summer Tournament is that it tends to suck all competitive chess at longer time-limit into a black hole on the Malone Road. The possibility of running shorter, snappier events on a once or twice weekly basis, particularly in the Spring and early Autumn has always been there and now Ballynafeigh Chess Club has seized the initiative with a weekly tournament running on Tuesday nights, the first round having just taken place.

Instead of going for a five or six round Swiss, the Ballynafeigh organisers led by Arbiter Brendan Jamison, have opted for an eight-round Swiss/Flexible hybrid. Hopefully, Brendan will not need a supply of headache tablets in these uncharted waters. He certainly wasn't overly pre-occupied with the birth of his brain-child, sweeping all before him at Civil Service's recent rapidplay before taking the lead in the percentage table in the Belfast South flexible tournament by beating previous leader and top-seed John Masterson on the Monday immediately before the first night of the new tournament on the Tuesday.

Jamison has set up a dedicated website for the Ballynafeigh Spring Tournament and apart from all the detailed information on the event, there is already a short report there on the first round. The event must already be considered a success story with 40 entrants, of whom 38 participated in the first round. There are three free weeks within the schedule so play continues until Tuesday 24th May.

The title of this piece promised new websites and I found a link at the Spring Tournament to the second one, which incidentally also has a Jamison connection. Brendan has used his skills connected with his "day job" to design a logo for Childrens Chess Northern Ireland which has also just established its own web presence. CCNI has been going now for about 15 years and is run in conjunction with the UCU. The CCNI website also has information on the recently established Strandtown Chess Academy. This is based at the eponymous primary school where coincidentally your author spent two years of his education - if the Academy had been there then, I might have less excuse for the standard of my play!