6 October 2014 - Club Allegro

Dave Hewitt writes: The autumn allegro on Monday evening was well attended, with 16 players including the two juniors Andrew and Ewan - they both had to leave before the end but it was good to see them getting involved. Given that various regulars were absent there could well be scope for an event with 20 players in due course, and it's good to see the club busy.

For a while it looked as if Shivan was going to stroll to 5/5 (he beat me in a long game and then saw off Neil in nine moves en route to 3/3), but Robin uncorked a Q sac against him in r4 and was suddenly on 100% himself. The last round saw Robin lose to Neil and Shivan beat Graham, so it finished as a three-way tie between Neil (who was also joint-winner last time), Shivan (making his debut in the event) and Robin, who had somehow contrived never to win any of the 18 previous allegros. Tony finished fourth with 3.5/5, while Robert T played well and made an excellent start - a draw with Graham and a win against Steve - before finishing on 2/5. Craig had his best result thus far, 3/5, including a curious r3 encounter with Gordon where both players ended up with not much time but Gordon had been the beneficiary of a two-minute bonus for an illegal move earlier, except that this had been remembered rather than actually added (don't tell anyone at FIDE, otherwise we'll be banned). At least with Craig's flag being the one to fall this meant that there wasn't any need to solve the puzzle of what to do if the person with spare unadded time actually ran out of the regular stuff first. (Problems relating to digital clocks, no.263...)

Time control: 15 minutes each for all moves

	Name	Grade	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Place
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16	Shivan Murdochy   Graham Anderson   Neil Irving   Steve Smith   Robin Hayles   Dave Hewitt   Tony Pitson   Gordon Allcock   David Brodie   Robert Togneri   Mick Bloor   Craig Manson   Paulo Ferreira   David Little   Andrew Richardson   Ewan Lennox	1907   1610   1603   1583   1522   1502   1425   1376   1332   1197   1189   1134   u/g   u/g   u/g   u/g	1 W 9   ½ B 10   1 W 11   0 B 12   1 W 13   1 B 14   1 W 15   1 B 16   0 B 1   ½ W 2   0 B 3   1 W 4   0 B 5   0 W 6   0 B 7   0 W 8	2 B 6   1½ W 12   2 B 7   0 W 10   2 B 8   1 W 1   1 W 3   1 W 5   1 W 14   1½ B 4   1 W 15   1 B 2   1 W 16   0 B 9   0 B 11   0 B 13	3 W 3   1½ B 5   2 B 1   1 bye   3 W 2   2 B 10   2 B 11   2 B 12   2 B 13   1½ W 6   1 W 7   1 W 8   1 W 9   1 B 15   0 W 13   -	3 B 5   2½ W 11   3 W 8   2 W 13   4 W 1   2½ W 7   2½ B 6   2 B 3   2½ W 10   2 B 9   1 B 2   2 B 14   1 B 4   1 W 12   1 bye   -	4 W 2   2½ B 1   4 W 5   3 B 11   4 B 3   3 B 8   3½ W 9   2½ W 6   2½ B 7   2 W 12   1 W 4   3 B 10   1 W 14   2 B 13   -   -	=1   =8   =1   =5   =1   =5   4   =8   =8   =11   =13   =5   =13   =11   =13   16

Thanks to Neil for providing his third round match against Shivan below, with analysis.

Murdochy - Irving