2023 British Championships - Didn't We Do Well!

Having reluctantly come to the conclusion - eventually - that Joshua will not be continuing his series of reports from Leicester, I guess it has fallen to me to summarise the KCC results and mark our collective scorecard.

There were a few changes from the initial runners and riders I published just before the off, as some people opted to play in more or less tournaments than I expected (maybe I just miscounted?), but the most significant change was that Solomon has returned from the Wild West (Wells) and at least temporarily revived his KCC membership. He played a rather impressive 42 games at Leicester - and did rather well - so he certainly needs to be included in our stats!  This means that the revised count is that KCC players made 39 tournament entries between them (covering 21 different events) and played 281 games in total.

Well, no doubt you are all on tenterhooks to find out what our final performance numbers looked like. So, to put you out of your misery, I can revela that the overall KCC score amounted to 141.5 pts, and a 50.4% strike rate. This represents a major improvement on the 46.7% achieved at Warwick Uni in the 2015 Championships. And we played more than 100 additional games this time around.

While the standout individual performance has to be Jude's 5/9 in the British Championship, the highest overall KCC percentage results were:-

1 David    9/12 - 75.0% (2 events)
2 Billy    18/28 - 64.3% (4 events)
3 Jude    11/18 - 61.1% (2 events)

It bodes rather well for the future when David is the old man amongst our star performers! Of our 15 players, no fewer than 11 scored 50% or more. Congratulations to everyone who played and supported this event. I just hope it wasn't so well supported that it's going to be in Leicester again, any time soon!

And we certainly have to record the names of our two tournament winners, who have every reason to be extremely proud of their achievements. Solomon came 1st= in the Weekend U1750 event, with a score of 4.5/5. Not bad for the 34th ranked player. And just as impressive was David's score of 6/7 in the Second Rapidplay Open, which gave him clear first place ahead of Billy, who tied for second, just half a point behind. It was quite something to see the pairing Fellowes v Phillips on Board 1 in the final round of an open event at the British Championships!

This week's song is by way of a tribute to the brilliant Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist and main song writer for that all time great group The Band who passed away earlier this month. Although not as famous as The Weight, or The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, this is my favourite Band song, and this is an awesome live rendition with brilliant guitar solos from Robbie. Frightening and tragic to think that only Garth Hudson remains from these five superb musicians - the only group ever who have been good enough to get away with calling themselves The Band. RIP Robbie. Another rock and roll genius gone, but what a magnificent musical legacy he has left us.

National TV!

For those of you who missed it - and that could easily have included me, given the brutallu early broadcast time of o8.50 - here is incontrovertible proof that 2 KCC legends were live on  national TV this morning, talking about chess. And not just any old channel, but BBC1. You can't get any more mainstream national TV than that.

Jude, looking cool, calm and collected - despite being watched by several million people!

Paul telling the country what a great game chess is. But will the country listen? It should!

These photos were, literally, screen shots - the screen in question being our rather ancient and decidedly non-widescreen TV.

Great work by both our legends who came across as old hands at this sort of thing. Clearly the experience of getting into desperate time trouble means that handling pressure like this is a piece of cake. I can't come close to matching this sort of media exposure - the listening figures when I was interviewed in a Radio 3 documentary many years back probably struggled to reach 4 figures. And most of them were doubtless waiting for Bruckner's Second Symphony or whatever concert performance was due on next. (BTW I chose this musical work completely at random, only to discover it is called the Symphony of Pauses, which was possibly quite apt for my radio contribution!)

Anyway, guys, many congratulations on a massively confident and impressive performance - but please take on board the words from this week's song, and don't forget your old friends from before you were famous!

Its Official - KCC is (Slightly) Optimistic

Sorry to interrupt Joshua's "daily" reports from the British Championships (which seem to have run into the metaphorical buffers), but there's a Team Tournament involving KCC demanding attention.

Last Saturday, the Phil Holt Memorial Tournament took place at Tyseley WMC, remembering the recent tragic passing of Olton's top player, the widely known and formidable Phil Holt, as well as a number of other  Olton players. The event, unfortunately clashing with the final weekend of the British Championships, attracted ten three player, grade restricted, teams - all from the Birmingham area/league, except ourselves. The fixture clash, plus a strange outbreak of non-communication and non-cooperation, meant it was a struggle to raise our two teams, but with a judicious use of ringers it was finally mission accomplished, and KCC was able to support this worthy event to a level appropriate to the long competitive rivalry and friendship between ourselves and Olton.

Rather than call ourselves Kenilworth A and B, I decided we would participate under the titles of Optimists and Pessimists, mainly because I couldn't stand the idea of me being in Kenilworth B while Bernard was in Kenilworth A! The Optimists lined up with Andrew P on Board 1 (unrestricted grade); Bernard R on Board 2 (Under 1850) and Hector on Board 3 (Under 1650); while I led the Pessimists, with Rhys on Board 2 and John Conway, who we borrowed from Coventry for the day, on Board 3. Lined up against us were 3 teams from Olton; 2 from Halesowen and 1 each from Shirley, Mutual Circle and South Birmingham. The competition ran over 2 rounds at the Leamington League time limit of 80 mins + 10 seconds per move.

The first round was something of a disaster for both our teams, marginally edged by the Optimists who secured 1/3, thanks to Andrew's draw with Black against Alan Lloyd (Olton A) and Bernard's draw against Paul Evans (Halesowen A). Meanwhile, I was the only scorer for the well-named Pessimists though as I only managed to draw against Richard Reynolds (Olton C) despite being up a queen and pawn for just 2 minor pieces, I didn't have much to be proud of!

But then the KCC boys came roaring back with a big effort in Round 2, doubtless fortified by the free lunch, with both of our teams scoring a mightily impressive 2.5/3. For the Optimists, Andrew beat South Birmingham's Board 1, Kevin Hurney, and Hector won on Board 3 against Tom Evans of Olton A, while Bernard somehow hung on for a draw against Richard Liszewski (Olton C). For the Pessimists, guest player John led the way with a win against Tony Taylor of Halesowen A, while Rhys fought back from a difficult position to draw against Tim Lane of South Birmingham. But, in the biggest shock since Foinavon won the 1967 Grand National, the real sensation was that, at the 11th time of asking, I finally won against Alan Lloyd (Olton A) after managing just 5 draws and 5 losses previously.

Regrettably, our storming second half showings couldn't propel either of our teams onto the winner's podium, but at least it ensured that (a) everyone of our 6 players was on the scoreboard; (b) we could hold our heads up high amongst the Birmingham League big boys; and (c) that Optimism triumphed over Pessimism.

Final scores

1 = Halesowen B and South Birmingham 4/6

3= Kenilworth Optimists and Halesowen A 3.5/6

5= Kenilworth Pessimists, Olton A and Olton C 3/6

8= Mutual Circle and Shirley 2.5/6

10 Olton B 1/6

Only two players scored 2/2 and very fittingly one of them was Trevor Holt, Phil's dad, playing Board 2 for Olton A, who included Rhys amongst his victims. The other was South Birmingham's Board 3, Derek Green. Decency prevents me naming the two players who scored 0/2, but importantly ..... neither of them was from Kenilworth!

Many thanks to Rob and Richard Reynolds for organising this event, and for inviting us to be part of a memorable occasion. It was especially poignant for me, as Phil Holt was the person I have played the most games of competitive chess against - 16. Not quite in the Arkell v Hebden category, but hugely significant in my chess life. The awfully long list of Olton players who have recently died includes two others I had played against - Richard Smith and Rob Wallman - and three, Bill Yeomans, Ken Allen and ("old") Tom Evans that I hadn't, but whom several KCC members undoubtedly will have.  This has been a tragic couple of years for Olton and we can only hope they have an upturn in fortunes from now on.

Such events certainly make you think about your own mortality. There's only one song that comes to mind right now. No further words needed.