Wiltshire Team Rapidplay - 2004

Brown Jack 'B' (Peter Richmond, Gary Tanner & Lewis

Martin) won the Wiltshire Team Rapidplay Tournament on

November 30th 2003 with 11 points out of 15. The hosts

Nationwide (Sven Zeidler, Champa Phoutsady & Jack

Cleeves) pushed them all the way to finish joint second

with Brown Jack 'A' (Richard Haydon, Joshua Hall & Robbie

Dams) on 9½. After two rounds Brown Jack 'B' had a

maximum 6 points with Nationwide on 5½, and the rest

seemingly out of contention. Peter had managed to

survive a massive attack on his king to reach the ending

a pawn up when Richard dropped a rook. Sven was a whole

bishop down to Tim, but salvaged a draw by eliminating all

the pawns. The leaders' meeting in round 3 ended in a

drawn match with Champa and Lewis both achieving

reaching 3 wins from 3 games. In round 4 Tim Headlong

annihilated Peter to help Brown Jack 'C' to victory over the

'B' team, for whom only Lewis' draw prevented the

whitewash. Nationwide's draw with Brown Jack 'A' was

therefore enough to give them a half point lead going into

the final round. In round 5 Brown Jack 'B' set the target

after achieving maximum points. Brown Jack 'C'  lost 1-2

to Trowbridge 'A' after Tim blundered his queen. Brown

Jack 'A' scored maximum to reach 9½. Sven took his score

to 4 and Nationwide's to 9½, but they could not add to this

as Fenella Headlong and Nicola Thomas displayed good

endgame technique to give Wiltshire Women the match 2-1.

Peter and Gary were also in the winning team last year

when Joshua scored 5/5 on board 3. This year Lewis

scored 4½, so the secret of success seems to be to have

the best bottom board.

Thanks to Peter Richmond for the report.