Once again there were only three
Kenilworth players in action today, for the second half of the
rapidplay, so this report will be a short one before the main action
of the tournament begins tomorrow. Mike Johnson continued his
excellent run of results from yesterday, though it is fair to say
that every time I came over to look as his board halfway through a
game I felt that he was worse, but he would then find a way to draw
the game and stay unbeaten. At one stage it look as though he may
have been on course to challenge for one of the minor prizes.
However, fatigue finally caught up with him in the end, with two
defeats in the last three rounds, including a last round game against
a 14 year old which lasted at least 80, and may have been over 100
moves. Still, a final score of 6.5/11 is more than creditable for a
127 graded player playing the U150 section.
On a slightly more unfortunate note, a
similar consistency was also maintained by Ben, but not to such
positive ends. The difficulty of being one of the lowest graded
players in an open section was always going to present a challenge,
and a final score of 3/11, Whilst disappointing, is probably around
the score a grade of 150 would predict. Better results could perhaps
have been achieved if time pressure had not caught up with him in a
number of games. Finally, I had a fairly uneventful day, with 3
reasonable clean wins in endgames, and three games where poorly
played openings led me to a bad position and eventual defeat without
any real chances for a more positive result. A final score of 6/11
was respectable, but more importantly I managed 11 decisive games out
of 11 without a single draw; a record I intend to try and keep up for
the remainder of the tournament.
I made a point of writing down the
moves from one of my games so I would have something specific to
report, which turned out to be one of the games I ultimately won.
However, after having shown
the game to Paul, he informs me that it is so boring that it really
isn't worth posting it. Personally I think that a game where more
than half the pieces on the board have been exchanged by move 20 is a
good one, but perhaps the majority of players will not agree with my
sentiments. Therefore, further actual games from the event will have
to wait until tomorrow.
Summary
thus far:
Total score by Kenilworth players: 15.5/33
My
personal performance:
Played: 11
Wins:
6
Losses:
5
Draws:
0
Well
played endgames: 5
Atrocious
blunders: 4
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