Season 10 is off and running and our 8 Wessex teams are competing across all 5 divisions, with 32 boards in action.

At an individual level, with 14 wins, 6 draws and 12 losses there were a lot of close matches, although we somehow converted this into 5 match wins, 1 match draw and 2 match losses – a great start to the season, see below. There were a number of quirky and mysterious defaults including a double default although luckily none of these affected the match results – I’ve flagged them all to the 4NCL team and hope to find out what caused these.

Division 1

A great start for Wessex A against a useful Spirit of Atticus team. Gavin lost a very tight game on board 1 whilst wins from Rolandas & Jaimie plus a draw from Mark saw us prevail 2.5 – 1.5

Jaimie modestly pointed out =>“Apparently I missed a tactic on move 10 but otherwise solid enough”– it was a fleeting tactical opportunity which our silicon friend pounced on of course – in the position below Jaimie played the natural Be6 – better is Nxe4!

• When after Nxe4 Qxa2, c3 Qa1+, Kc2 Qa4+ picks up the loose knight

For some reason this game showed Jaimie winning by default – I’ve queried this with the 4NCL team….

Wessex B are now back in Div 1 after a brief visit to Div 2 and lost a tight first round match against a strong Hertford 1 team. Board 2 was played; however, as it was played as an “Unrated” game the arbiters set it to 0-0 (it was actually drawn so this did not affect the match result). Our only win came from Raj against a higher graded opponent.

Division 2

Our Wessex C team faced a similar strength Dundee City Cand got revenge for our loss in the same fixture last season by edging it 2.5 – 1.5. Wins from Jamie & Reenen plus a (debut) draw from Anuhas secured the win.

Division 3

Our D team edged win against a useful Worcestershire Wolfpack B team with draws from Hugo, Ralph & Tim plus a win from Joe.

Our E team were out graded on every board yet managed to draw the match with wins from Zoltan (on his debut) and Simon.

Division 4

Our F team looked to have a very tough match based on grades but rose to the occasion with 3 wins from Andrea, Tom & Rob against higher graded players. Doug, outgraded by 533 points(!), played well and was unlucky to lose having stood better at various points.

Division 5

Gerard did play (and lose) although this ended up as a default loss (I think because I loaded the wrong Lichess ID although I’m checking this with 4NCL). Michal also played and won although that ended up recorded as a double default (more mystery to me). Luckily wins from Manuel & Tim which were actually recorded(!) saw us over the line to win the match.

Wessex H lost 3-1 to a higher gradedWest Wickham, with our only win coming from Martin – Steve was ahead for most of his game and was unlucky to lose.

So a great evening overall, with wins for Wessex A,C,D,F & G, a draw for Wessex E and a loss for Wessex B & H

Hopefully round 2 will see us keep up this fine start to the season!

Stats-time

With just 1 round completed our 100% club is already down to 14 people in the race for the “golden pawn”

Martin won the “biggest upset” award with his remarkable win, beating a player graded 604 points higher !

Keith Gregory, Wessex Captain, September 13th 2024