Taunton Championship 2011

This year’s Taunton Championship wasn’t a close competition as it was last year when 3 had to fight for the title in a decider rapid play play-off. Last year Mike Richardt emerged as the overall winner ahead of Nick Wilson and Jorge Pineda-Langford.

BUT this was last year and this year’s the competition was wide open as we had two strong players joining the club since last summer. Terry Stuttard and Jerry Kilby joined the club last summer and both had a great first season for Taunton.  

The format for the Club Championship hasn’t changed from last year:

5 round swiss tournament

One round every month (with more time for matches during Christmas and Easter)

35 moves in 75 minutes + 15 quick play finish

There was no clear favourite at the start of the tournament but last year’s winner Mike, Terry and Nick were all topped to be the next winner. Also Jorge who played a strong tournament last year should not be underestimated; to be honest on a good day of one of the lower rated players could upset any of the favourites.

In the first round the pairings were as followed:

	Player White		Player White
Board	Player	Score	Player	Score
1	Richardt, Mike	1	McAndrew, Vic	0
2	Ward, Michael	0	Wilson, Nicholas	1
3	Worrall, Martin	1	Watson, Michael	0
4	Anderson, John	0	Wojcik, Stan	1
5	Pineda-Langford, Jorge	0 default	Kilby, Jeremy	1 default
6	Stuttard, Terry	1	Graham, Dave	0

No real surprise in the first round results as normally David has to play Goliath and didn’t cause a major upset.

The second round pairings were therefore:

	Player White		Player White
Board	Player	Score	Player	Score
1	Wojcik, Stan	0	Richardt, Mike	1
2	Wilson, Nicholas	0	Stuttard, Terry	1
3	Kilby, Jeremy	1	Worral, Martin	0
4	Watson, Michael	0	Pineda-Langford, Jorge	1
5	Graham, Dave	0	Ward, Michael	1
6	McAndrew, Vic	1	Anderson, John	0

In this round the first ‘Clash of the Titans’ happened with a black win for Terry against Nick. Also the first major surprise in the tournament happened as Mike Ward beat Dave Graham. Dave out rated Mike by nearly 30 points but this shows you that the grading is just a number after all.

The third round:

	Player White		Player White
Board	Player	Score	Player	Score
1	Richardt, Mike	1	Kilby, Jeremy	0
2	Stuttard, Terry	0,5	Wojcik, Stan	0,5
3	Pineda-Langford, Jorge	0	Wilson, Nicholas	1
4	Worrall, Martin	1	McAndrew, Vic	0
5	Ward, Michael	1	Watson, Michael	0
6	Anderson, John	0	Graham, Dave	1

Terry drew with Stan which was a surprise for some as Terry had a very strong season and some people estimated Terry’s strengths around the 200ECF mark. So people were surprised when Stan managed to draw with Terry. A very good result for Stan indeed. I was drawn against Jerry who also has a good season. In a tactical battle I emerged as the winner, but a Rybka analysis showed that I was lucky to win the game. Well, we play humans and not bloody ‘tin boxes’ with duo core processors!

Round 4:

	Player White		Player White
Board	Player	Score	Player	Score
1	Stuttard, Terry	1	Richardt, Mike	0
2	Wilson, Nicholas	1	Worrall, Martin	0
3	Kilby, Jeremy	1	Ward, Michael	0
4	Wojcik, Stan	1	McAndrew, Vic	0
5	Graham, Dave	0,5	Pineda-Langford, Jorge	0,5
6	Watson, Michael	1	Anderson, John	0

This round was a ‘disgrace’ for the black players. Terry had no problems to win against me as I wasn’t able to calculate a 3 move combination. How sad is that, but well played by Terry who now was leading the tournament in the crucial part of the tournament.  Last year’s brilliant player, Jorge, had a tough season. Unable to play most of the games in the league he clearly lacked match practice and didn’t play as effective as he did last year.

Final round 5:

	Player White		Player White
Board	Player	Score	Player	Score
1	Kilby, Jeremy	0	Stuttard, Terry	1
2	Richardt, Mike	1	Wilson, Nicholas	0
3	Ward, Michael	1	Wojcik, Stan	0
4	Worrall, Martin	1	Graham, Dave	0
5	Pineda-Langford, Jorge	0 default	Anderson, John	0 default
6	McAndrew, Vic	1	Watson, Michael	0

In the last round Terry won convincingly against Jerry and I won against Nick, who was unfortunately in a hurry to finish his game. The result of the round was by Mike Ward, who again upset one of the higher rated players, by winning his game against Stan. A great tournament for Mike Ward as you can see in the performance table.

Unfortunately one game in this round couldn’t be completed so both players had a ‘0’ as a result. Not that it would have made a huge difference to the final standings but nevertheless avoidable.

Below you will find the performance table. This was actually done by Gerry Jepps, who does all the ECF calculations for Somerset. I have sent him the tournament for grading this morning and he replied nearly straight with his performance chart. I had to change things it a little bit to make it fit but you can clearly see the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ regarding ECF performance in the tournament.

No	ECF	Player	Points	Grade	Performance	Difference
1.	274047D	Anderson, EJ	0/4	76	53	-23
2.	187654F	Graham, David	1,5/5	114	97	-17
3.	281583H	McAndrew, Victor	2/5	101	104	+3
4.	255049A	Pineda-Langford, Jorge	1,5/3	129	121	-8
5.	259887F	Richardt, Mike	4/5	177	186	+9
6.	121131G	Ward, MJ	3/5	88	126	+38
7.	260543A	Watson, Michael David	1/5	81	71	-10
8.	162574D	Wilson, Nicholas	3/5	161	162	+1
9.	126955A	Wojcik, PS	2,5/5	132	126	-6
10.	194419J	Worrall, Martin	3/5	138	135	-3
11.	283910G	Stuttard, Terrance	4,5/5	e195	201	+6
12.	281586C	Kilby, Jerry	2/4	e149	153	+4

The final standings after round 5:

Rank	Participant	Score
1	Terry Stuttard	4.5
2	Mike Richardt	4.0
3	Nick Wilson	3.0
3	Jeremy Kilby	3.0
5	Mike Ward	3.0
6	Martin Worrall	3.0
7	Stan Wojcik	2.5
8	Vic McAndrew	2.0
9	Dave Graham	1.5
10	Jorge Pineda-Langford	1.5
11	Michael Watson	1.0
12	John Anderson	0.0

 Thanks to all participants for a nice tournament without any problems. I will hand over the Cup at the next AGM to Terry. Congrats to Mike Ward for a fantastic tournament performance.

Congratulations to the winner, Terry Stuttard, who played a great season and finished it with a great result in the Taunton Championship 2011.