Police cannot control anarchy by Ben Purton

18 October 2011

Thanks to Jonathan Rogers for his report and the perspective from a fellow captain. I was a very proud captain this tournament mainly due to my team performing stunningly above their ratings which even they would admit are perhaps a tad high.

In the first round we faced the dangerous Warwickshire Select 2 side and after a few shaky games we won 4-0, which given the game/match point format suited us very well. The next round we got drawn with Drunken Knights, who had GM’s Gormally and Arkell ; the bar was already open so both teams had pints at the board. Sam Williams and Tom Rendle both drew and I honestly thought (assumed) Roberson had lost against Arkell; he sacced the exchange for an attack but clearly it was a good attack.

I kept playing desperately a pawn up in a tough Bishop ending. We won 2½-1½ and I was both delighted and shocked. In the third round I dropped myself for our star player, Mr Liam Varnam , a 10 year Shark veteran . Both he and Sam Williams forgot they were playing rapidplay and the top 2 boards who scored 1½/2 vs. Parker and Piper watched in bemusement as the clocks both fell. We lost 2½-1½ and were on 8/12, which was a respectable score and left us in third position but having got both the top seeds out the way.

We then played Leeds University Old Boys and basically I decided in a must win encounter that our star player Liam Varnam would have to be put in again. He won very convincingly in fact, as did Roberson and Rendle. Sadly I was the exchange and 2 pawns down, luckily 90% of my chess has been learnt on the ICC and I managed to swindle an entire rook and the game, leading to a much needed 4-0 victory.

We then had the ADs who on paper we were unlikely to beat easily, with Richardson, Snape and Swindells on the top 3 boards, a 200+ average. We drew the top 2 and Sam and I led the charge and sealed the 3-1 victory. This match gave us 15/20 and clear second place behind Barbican. We would have been delighted with second at this point and discussed how many points we thought would lock it in. Roberson thought we could get 8/8 against the final two opponents with such complete belief it was shocking. Sadly I had the option to play my star player Liam Varnam, but resisted the urge and played the top four in the next match.

So there we are in the lift, seven of us, myself, Roberson, Rendle, Gary O Grady, Peter Ackley etc etc, when suddenly the lift stops for 10-12 minutes! The hotel staff lowered us and forced the doors open. We arrived five minutes late (for a ten minute game) against the Met Police. So we were already handicapped. Rendle offered former British Champion William Watson a draw which was declined very quickly, almost as quickly as the time Rendle then took to destroy the grandmaster. All three of the remaining boards won and it was 4-0 against the Police to celebrate with giving them a five minute head start.

We were on 19/24, joint first with Barbican going in to the final round. Barbican had tie-odds because they had won more matches and the encounter between the sides. We won in destructive manner and this led to another 4-0 victory. Fortunately John Cox who had 6/6 going in to the last round and was playing amazingly slipped up against Brown Jack, leaving the Sons of Anarchy the winning team on 23/28 points.

FINAL SCORES (rough rating performances)

Tom Rendle 5½/7: RP 240

Peter Roberson 6½/7: RP 250

Ben Purton 5½/6: RP223

Sam Williams 4½/6: RP 212

Liam Varnam 1/2 RP: 200

Thank you to Mike Truran, David, Peter, Neville and all the other organisers who sadly ran the event at a loss. It does not deserve to run at a loss, and it is a shame that more teams do not show up for the event as it is an excellent event which has the social potential to be a sixth 4NCL weekend.

Thanks to Barbican for the kind words in a very close battle between our sides; we have not had one of them since I lost my heavier backers in division 1.

Peter Roberson played incredibly and is a titled player in the making.

But one man alone stands above all of the above. I would like to dedicate this report to Liam David Varnam, who is by far the best chess car driver I have ever seen. His work behind the wheel is exceptional. Without his amazing skills we would not have been able to win this weekend.

Team rapidplay report by Jonathan Rogers

16 October 2011

Much as it pains me to speak of another's team's success, I thought I'd be a good sport and report briefly on the victory of Sons of Anarchy at the Team Rapidplay yesterday.

As you might guess from the team name, they were captained by Ben Purton, and headed by Tom Rendle and Peter Roberson (both around 230 at rapidplay) with Sam Williams, Liam Varnam and Ben alternating between boards 3 and 4. Tom and Peter played to form and, I think, made a plus score against the 4 GMs at the venue (Watson, Parker, Arkell and Gormally; not to mention Matt Piper, who made a monster 2850 performance last year and 5½/6 in his other games this year). SoA also started to rack up the points on boards 3 and 4 at the end of the event, enabling them to finish with two 4-0 wins and to overtake Barbican 1 on gamepoints in the last round.

You might spare a thought for Barbican 1, averaging around 225 (Parker, Piper, Cox and myself) who won every match, and only lost three games over the boards during the day, and who probably played up to their average grade. However, my late arrival led to a default loss in the first round, an unfortunate event which always hung over us (given that gamepoints would decide the outcome) and without a reserve we also started to drop a bit on the bottom board at the end of the day, thus allowing ourselves to be overtaken. I don't actually know of any other example of a team having 100% on matchpoints and still losing out on gamepoints - does anyone else?! But it is true that using gamepoints does make the event more exciting, and by only losing 1½-2½ to Barbican 1 in round 3, SoA ensured that they were always in striking distance - and in the end they duly struck.

In case you are wondering, Watson played for the Metropolitan Police, and Arkell and Gormally for Drunken Knights. But unless I have forgotten someone, there was not any other GM or even IM than the players mentioned above, so the competition was much weaker than last year. It is well known that entries were down, but perhaps surprisingly, it was mostly the stronger teams of last year who did not play this year: Lawrence' s team of GMs, and Claire's P&P team of even more GMs were absent, as were the IMs from last year's Bristol, Cambridge and the Youth team.

I hope the event goes ahead again - it was impeccably organised this year - but we shall have to see; one cannot expect anyone to run a loss-making event.

For some reason, the team event results are not on the site, but the individual championship (played today) is being updated! Arkell and Gormally jointly led after five rounds and were about to have a shoot-out in round six.

Well done again to Ben and his team.

Links to the rapidplay scores:

  4NCL Team results.

  4NCL Individual results.

Further information about the 2011 event is here.

Slideshow photos above: courtesy of Kingpin Editor, Jon Manley.