2022 Summer Chess in Dartmouth

After a Covid-induced hiatus in 2020 and 2021 the Club staged another outdoor Summer Blitz event in Dartmouth on Saturday 2^nd July 2022. 18 players played from 11am to 5:30pm, with an interruption for fish 'n' chips ordered from a Dartmouth chippy. The event included guests from the Brixham and Newton Abbot clubs. The time contols were 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per move. Many thanks to Tony Tatam for arbiting, sorting out the pairings, and even doing an ad-hoc talk on the arcane laws regarding "illegal moves"!

Tony is proposing to use different pairing software ("Swiss Manager") for the Torbay Congress this November, and he decided to put this software through its paces today. It all went swimmingly well - after each round it took Tony about 1 minute from receiving the last game result to posting the pairings for the next round - pretty impressive! The final results can be viewed on the Swiss-Manager results website.

The start was delayed by about 15 minutes because of rain....

but it only took a few minutes to set up 9 boards and get cracking.

After that the weather was (mostly!) dry.

Hot and cold drinks, biscuits and nibbles were available throughout.

Chris Collins (B) v Nathan Mills (W) - a strong showing from the Brixham club.

The Wheelhouse in Dartmouth provided the fish and chips bang on schedule.

Fish is supposed to be good for the brain...

... but beer probably isn't.

After 6 rounds Steve Levy (here playing Mike Cuggy as white) pulled 1½ pts clear of the field.

But in Round 7 David Archer (here playing Chris Willcox as white) beat Steve to open up the competition.

Later in the afternoon we enjoyed sunny intervals.

Trefor Thynne (W) v Steve Cawser (B).

Tatam is prowling - watch out, chaps!

In the still air the Ukraine flag was a little droopy.

In the last round, Steve Levy (B) needed to beat James Schofield (W) to win the event outright. It turned out to be a very tight game! So much so that James finished the game standing up!

Under desperate time pressure, James made an illegal move, so Tony added 2 mins to Steve's clock. Time was decisive, and in the end Steve got the win he needed.