4NCL Online League – Season 10 – Round 3 report
Round 3 on Tuesday 8th October saw our 8 teams go into battle again.
At an individual level, we scored 13 wins, 5 draws and 14 losses which we converted into 3 match wins, 2 match draws and 3 match losses.
After the various time control / colour etc. hitches in rounds 1 & 2 all went smoothly in round 3 apart from Gavin’s IM opponent no-showing.
With 3 rounds from 7 completed the promotion / relegation battles are starting to emerge and several Wessex teams feature in these.
Division 1
Wessex A appeared to face strong opposition in the Jurassic Coast team although we got off to a surprisingly easy start when Jack Rudd defaulted on board 1 – a grinding win from David and a complicated game, eventually drawn, from Rolandas ( who pressed hard for a win and ran short of time) then saw us take the match.
With 5 points from 6, Wessex A are tied with Dundee City B at the top of their section and, given we are the highest rated team, are in with a great chance of making the play-offs for the 3rd season in a row.
Despite being out graded on every board Wessex B were unlucky to lose their match against Heffalump Hunters – Peter had a great position, and his opponent somehow hung on for a vital draw which gave them the match. Jamie Doyle kept his 100% record this season by overwhelming his higher graded opponent with a sustained attack for our only win.
With 1 point from 6 we are now in 7th place and looking to avoid relegation by picking up a few points over the next 4 rounds – potentially a tough task as we are yet to face the top 2 teams so our matches against the current 6th & 8th placed teams will likely both be “double-pointers” as we need to win the 3-team relegation battle.
Division 2
Wessex C had a great battle with Trelawny’s Army – all the games went past 21:00 with Reenen one of the last games to finish in the entire league at around 21:35
All 4 games were decisive and Bill & Hugo won their respective games to draw the match.
Division 3
Despite coming up against a strong Atticus team our D team lost a tight match with a win from Arjun and a draw from Tim keeping it close. Ralph gamely battled against an opponent who out graded him by nearly 500 points and was still in the battle at move 40 with a 0.0 position evaluation from Shredder before sheer “grade-power” started to tell and he succumbed to a collection of passed pawns.
Our D team have 4 points from 6 so hopefully will be more worried about promotion than relegation!
Our E team won comfortably against Dundee City E (our first ever E team v E team fixture) with wins from Rob & Ed plus draws from Phil & Zoltan.
With 5 points from 6, Wessex E are in 2nd place in their group with a real chance of promotion (possibly ahead of Wessex D in the other group!)
Division 4
Our F team looked to have a tough match based on grades but as in round 2 they rose to the occasion and clinched a 3-1 win, with Simon, Doug & Andrea all notching up wins against higher graded opponents. With 5 points from 6 , leading our section, and having played all but one of the top teams, we’re looking to join the promotion battle.
Division 5
Wessex G drew a tight match where white won every game(!) – our wins from Manuel and Karen (recently returned from South America!)
Interesting random fact – Wessex fielded two couples in two teams – Steve & Karen for Wessex G and our long-term regulars, Steve & Rose in Wessex H – I suspect we are unique in having one couple playing in the same 4NCL team let alone two
Wessex H faced strong opposition and went down 4-0, with Kevin & Tim both battling past 21:00 before losing.
So a reasonable evening overall, with wins for Wessex A, E & F, draws for Wessex C & G and losses for Wessex B , D & H
Stats-time
With 3 rounds completed our 100% club is already down to just 3 people in the race for the “golden pawn”, with Hugo Melling close behind.
3 –Jamie Doyle, Andrea Bucchi, Simon Redmill
2.5 – Hugo Melling
Simon Redmill won the “biggest upset” award with his win, beating a player graded 138 points higher.
We have now had 45 different players in action across the 3 rounds – 8 of these have played in all 3 rounds.
Keith Gregory, Wessex Captain, October 10th 2024