Team captain Nick Wilson's view on Taunton's Cup win!!

At this time of year, the days get brighter, daffodils are in bloom, spring is in the air, and Taunton Chess Club readies itself for yet another Somerset Cup Final...    And sure enough, this year is no different. But, as regular readers will know, this annual tale normally ends with us having our title dreams snatched away.... 

Somerset Cup game vs. Rhys Cumming

This is my game against Rhys Cumming in the Somerset Cup Final. A little bit a bout my opponent: Rhys is 16 years old and is one of Matthew Turner Millfield Student. Obviously getting regular coaching by a GM can be quite beneficial to your game and Rhys rose to an impressive rating of 191ECF this season. The overall score before the game was 2-1 in Rhys favour.

And the Somerset Cup goes to...........TAUNTON!!!!!

I just come back from our Somerset Cup final and after 5 consecutive years losing in the final, this year we did well and won. The final result was 6-2 with 4 draws and 4 wins against Glastonbury. Glastonbury fielded 3 Millfield students, including 11 year old Nikita who started playing chess for Glastonbury this year and has a strong seaon so far.

County Correspondence Game 2011

This game is my game against Barrie Saunders in the County Correspondence Championships 2011. Due to a huge blunder by my opponent I managed to win the game very quickly. The ratings are the normal ECF ratings but shouldn't make any difference in CC games.

Plettenberg II lost 3-5

Plettenberg II had to play their 5^th round match against Lennestadt. Lennestadt is one of the favourites to win the league. Plettenberg II plays in the Bezirksliga which is the equivalent of Division 1 in Somerset. Without 4 of their top 8 boards it was always an uphill struggle against the experienced players from Lennestadt. The final result was 3-5 but it could have been a 4-4 if one of the substitutes wouldn’t have thrown away good position and finally even lost the game.

	Home Team			Away Team
20/03/2011	Plettenberg II		3-5	Lennestadt
Board	Player		Score	Player
1	Maniocha, Marek		1/2	Stupperich, Reiner
2	Hecker, Jürgen		0-1	Theile-Rasche, Ingo
3	Skapski, Miroslaw		1/2	Soemer, Thomas
4	Assmann, Dirk		0-1	Dittmann, Rolf
5	Heiduck, Bernhard		1/2	Schleime, Franz-Josef
6	Meinking,Christian		1-0	Kouril,Bernward
7	Blumöhr, Jannis		0-1	Gonther,Alexander
8	Kensche, Wolfgang		1/2	Sänger, Klaus

Starting the season as one of the favourites to win the league Plettenberg II is now in a mid-table position closer to relegation than promotion. The promotion spot is currently occupied by Svgg Lüdenscheid and the relegation spot by VfB Turm Altena, but with two more rounds to go it can all change!!

For more information about the leagues please click here

Exciting chess happening in the southwest

Playing a few chess tournaments in the next few months is relatively made easy for me. Due to work commitments, studies and other normal life obsticles I can’t really play a lot of chess tournaments.

At the moment I will definitely play the team competitions with Taunton and Tiverton, including the Somerset Cup final against Glastonbury.

I would love to play the West of England Chess Union tournament during Easter but I am in Greece, having a well-deserved holiday.

Please find some tournaments below, which I might or might not attend. Well at least it’ll give you an idea what’s going on chess-wise in the next month or so. Please click on Entry form for the details of the tournament. In due course I will create a tournament page which I will update regulary.

Taunton Championship 2011

The Taunton Championship 2011 is nearly finished with one round left to play. The tournament is a 5 round swiss tourney spread over the whole season. We started in September 2010 and players have a month to play their game. The time control is 75 minutes/35 moves plus 15 minutes to finish the game; the same time control we use in the Somerset leagues.

Introduction

Here I am and starting a blog now....like so many other people who perhaps have too much time on their hands!!! :-)
Probably best to introduce myself first:
My name is Mike Richardt and I live in the UK with my wife.I am 32 years old when I start this blog. I am currently a student and I would say I don't live a typical student life. Well, first of all I am married which makes living the typical student life a little bit awkward!!