Clean Sweep

This year's Leamington League Individual Blitz Championship turned out to be a major triumph for KCC, as Kenilworth members took the first three places. This has definitely never happened before, and in fact, 1st place has proven rather elusive, as since 2000 we have only managed two victories - Carl Pickering in 2008 and me in 2018. (I also won in 2010, but as I was a Leamington player then, we'll pretend that never happened.)

Undisputed winner, scoring a perfect 9/9, was Javier, who despatched all comers without seeming to ever have a worse position and without making any major blunders. With everyone else routinely dropping pawns and pieces on most moves, or overlooking mate in 1 (thank you, Josh), this meant he was the runaway winner. I chased as hard as I could (40+ years handicap notwithstanding), conceding only one other half point after my Round 5 loss to Javi, but you simply can't fight perfection! The podium was rounded out by Bruce B a further point behind, due to the fact that I beat him in our individual encounter.  So KCC scooped the entirety of the massive prize pot (£16 for 1st and £10 each for 2nd and 3rd) in the Open section.

Unfortunately, one person objected to the event being graded, so Javi's remarkable 2748 TPR counted for nothing! Some form of justice was done as the objector played at more than 100 pts over his rating, but won't see any benefit from this.

Besides the prize winners we had a good turnout of Kenilworth members, with Joshua (8th) Mike (10th), Ben (14th) and Keatan (17th) all in attendance. Not much doubt where the team prize would have gone if there was one!

So many congratulations to Javi, whose name goes on the LDCL Roll of Honour (which can be seen here, though in some need of updating). There can only be one song to celebrate a score of 9/9.