Wiltshire Closed Championship - 2008

The following article is provided via Tony Ransom:

 2007/2008 Wiltshire Closed Chess Championship

The last Wiltshire Closed Chess Championship was run in 2006 on a monthly basis

at the various clubs in Wiltshire so as to reduce the amount of travelling for the

entrants. Due to the fact that juniors can’t play at Westinghouse due to Health

and Safety. It was my intention to run the Championship last year over a weekend

in the summer at a venue central to the clubs in Wiltshire namely Chippenham.

As a consequence the Chippenham Sports Club was booked and advertised on

Ceefax, ECF website, E-Mailing and Teletext for mid-July 2007, but due to the

disappointing entry list of two people the event was cancelled.

At the Wiltshire County Chess Association executive meeting in September 2007

I discussed this event with the rest of the committee and we agreed to run the

event over 6 rounds on a monthly basis at Brown Jack chess club in Wroughton

starting on 12th November 2007. I subsequently re-advertised on Ceefax, ECF

website, E-Mailing and Teletext resulting in an entry of 8 for Major section and

6 for the Minor section as there were going to be 6 rounds the championship

would be played on a Swiss pairing basis i.e. no player shall play the same

opponent twice, the pairings are based on points scored and games played as

white.

However on the opening night two people asked that although they had missed

the cut-off date for the championship could they still enter. As the championship

was at an early stage and the fact that the first round matches had already started

there wasn’t too much trouble in adding them to the Minor section and adding

an extra round to the championship which made the number of rounds seven

and that all played all instead of a Swiss pairing. Hence the entry list for the two

sections was in alphabetical order:-

Major                                                  Minor

Robbie Coats                                       Jon Coats

Paul Girdlestone                                   Nigel Crucifix

Dan Hall                                              Stephen Downes

Richard Haydon                                   Toby Hall

Tim Headlong                                       Nik Janik

Michael Mkpadi                                    Kelvin Jackson

Peter Richmond                                    Roy Ludlow

Clive Walley                                         Gareth Williams

The results from each round was encouraging in that there was no clear favourite i.e. any

number of people could win the sections which meant that people didn’t drop out if they had

no chance of winning.

Although there were a couple of hiccups in people not making their matches it was possible,

due to the bon homie of their opponents to re-arrange their matches causing a fixture pile-up

for the non-shows. Apart from that there were no other major problems. Although I say no

major problems there was the sad news that Michael Mkpadi had to withdraw from the Major

section due to a change of work location which meant he wouldn’t be able to make his

remaining matches on time.

The upshot of this was that his opponents in the remaining matches were awarded a point.

Before the start of the final round there were 4 contenders for the title of 2007/2008 Wiltshire

Champion and they were Paul Girdlestone, Daniel Hall, Tim Headlong and Peter Richmond,

who eerie enough were playing each other, so it couldn’t have worked out better. For Paul

to win the title he had to win his game against Peter and Daniel had to lose his match against

Tim. For Daniel to win the title he had to beat Tim and Peter had to lose his match against Paul.

In order for Tim to share the title (he couldn’t win it outright) he had to win with Peter and Daniel

losing their matches. For Peter to retain his title he just had to beat Paul.

In the case of the Minor section there were 3 contenders for the title of 2007/2008 Wiltshire

Minor Champion namely Jon Coats, Toby Hall and the reigning title holder Gareth Williams.

In order for Gareth to win or share the title Roy Ludlow had to win or draw respectively his

match with Toby. For Jon to share the title Toby and Gareth both had to lose their matches.

The consequence of all this was that Peter Richmond beat Paul Girdlestone to win the

2007/2008 Wiltshire Champion with Daniel Hall as runner-up. In the case of the Minor section

although Gareth Williams had beaten Kelvin Jackson the title wasn’t decided until the last

match  Roy Ludlow v Toby Hall. With Roy being a piece up he was able to deliver the killer

blow in what was a very close match as Toby managed to avoid Roy’s checks to win the game

and the title with Gareth Williams being the runner-up.

The perspective from one of the players  Roy Ludlow on the championship was:-

Over the years various formats have been tried for the
Wiltshire Closed Tournament. I am sure that all will
agree that this year's arrangement was particularly
successful.

The Tournament was divided into 'Major' and 'Minor'
sections so that all competitors played opponents of a
broadly similar standard. The result was that nearly
all games played were highly competitive and most
enjoyable.

Matches were played once a month on a Monday evening
at Brown Jack Chess Club in Wroughton. On each
occasion some seven or eight games took place, which
made for a lively and intense atmosphere. All matches
were played in a fine spirit and much enjoyment was
had by all.

On behalf of all competitors I would like to thank
Tony Ransom - Tournaments Secretary - for his
excellent organisational work. Congratulations are due
to him and also to Peter Richmond and Toby Hall (both
Brown Jack players), who won the 'Major' and 'Minor'
Tournaments respectively.

The final results for the section are as follows:-

From left to right Jon Coats, Gareth Williams, Kelvin Jackson, Stephen Downes,

Robbie Coats, Daniel Hall, Toby Hall, Paul Girdlestone, Tim Headlong,

Peter Richmond, Nik Janik, Nigel Crucifix, Richard Haydon and Roy Ludlow.

Missing Michael Mkpadi and Clive Walley.