We are the Champions! Open KO Cup!

Apologies for being a bit slow off the mark with a Cup Final report compared to Ben. But I've got here in the end, even if I have stolen his headline in the process.

And my goodness, what a performance I have to report. A fifth successive Open KO Cup for Kenilworth was secured on Tuesday (albeit spread over 7 years due to Covid!), when we beat Stratford 4.5-0.5 at Olton. This still leaves us some way behind Rugby's record 7 wins in a row, but as long as the run continues, there's always a chance we might get there! We have now won the Open KO Cup 11 times in total.

Having beaten Stratford A in our recent league match, we were bound to start favourites, as although we were missing Javier from that team, Captain Fantastic Andrew had managed to secure the services of Jude and Billy to make up for his absence. Not a bad trade, you'd have to say! What they lack in years they more than make up for in ability and rating! And as if that wasn't daunting enough, Stratford had the misfortune to be missing their top board, Ben Larkin, and to arrive with only 4 players. Consequently, all I had to do to claim the first point of the night was stay alive until 20.30, and thankfully I managed that.

The first real game to finish was on Board 2, where Jude overwhelmed David Gardner in what looked like a very convincing win - though he did confide in me afterwards that there was one moment where David could have made things considerably more difficult. But once this tactic was missed, Jude started collecting a lot of material and won quickly. Soon afterwards Andrew won against Richard Dobedoe on Board 5 to clinch the match. A Black bishop appeared on h5 attacking a White rook on f3, and unfortunately for Richard there was another White rook on d1, so he was just dropping an exchange. Rather than prolong the suffering he decided to resign on the spot.

Jude won too quickly for me to capture him in action! Billy, meanwhile, looks absolutely thrilled to be playing on Board 1

At which point I took this as my cue to depart for home, leaving Billy and Keatan both in action. Keatan's position against Alexander Roberts was looking rather ropey to me, as he was a pawn down without much/any compensation that I could see. But what do I know - not much later Nash messaged me to say that Keatan had drawn. In contrast, Billy, after a quiet opening with Black, had started to make inroads into Richard McNally's position on top board, posting a very dangerous looking bishop on e4 attacking a White king that was completely lacking any close pawn cover - the g pawn having disappeared and the f and h pawns having marched up the board. I don't know how Billy engineered the win, but it was no surprise to learn that he had found a way and wrapped up a very convincing win, which gave us our fourth consecutive Div 1/Open Cup double.

Keatan (top) thinking hard; The Invisible Man winning on Board 4; and Andrew getting ready to pounce on an upcoming oversight.

Our recent trophy record is getting to ridiculous proportions - it is now 17 trophies in the last 4 seasons with, I think, 15 of them coming in the Leamington League. Kenilworth may be the smallest place to have any teams in the League, but we can certainly punch above our weight! Which is a rather convoluted connection to our song of the week!

Congratulations to every one who played in our latest successful Cup campaign - 4.5-0.5 v Shirley; 5-0 (by default) against Coventry; and 4.5-0.5 against Stratford. 

We are the Champions! U8750 Cup!

 

The Winning Team: - (l-r) Dylan, Dan, Ben, Paul, Dhairya

In the beginning, there were five... This was more or less how I started a recent Chess Magazine article, which focussed on Frank Marshall. In Marshall's (historically dubious) telling of the story, there were originally five Grandmasters.  Just as the names of Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall will live forever in the chess world, future Kenilworth historians will doubtless want to acknowledge the efforts of Badger, Pandya, Graff, Davies and Bayliss in more or less the same breath.

We not only defended the U8750 Cup last night against Shirley, but also managed to do so having played the same team in every round. 

We started out with a 1-4 win away to Solihull on a cold January night. This had been followed by a nail-biting semi-final against Stratford in March, which we edged 2-3. Yesterday we were on the road again. All finals are at a neutral venue, and we lined up against Shirley in Olton.

 

The match was played in a really good spirit, with lots of friendships existing between the teams. As someone who plays for Shirley in the Birmingham League, I have reflected on the fact that the two biggest games of the season for the C and U8750 teams both came against the club (other than Kenilworth of course) that I most have a soft spot for and relationship with - but needs must. I'll get the drinks in when I attend the Shirley AGM!

I would love to be able to give a blow by blow account of all the games, but I can't, as my own battle was the last to finish. So I will share what I can... Things started exactly as they had last year, with me losing the toss. Dylan finished first with an excellent draw against Arnold Peace. It looked to have been very solid throughout. Last year Dylan was in the U1600 cup final team and his promotion and delivery at a higher level is testament to his progress. An excellent end to a great season.

Paul then went down on Board 1 against Darren Whitmore. It sounds like both players had their chances, and Darren is always a tough opponent. So a good struggle, but it meant that we were losing the match. I would like to thank Paul for all his efforts this season as he has been our key player on so many occasions, but this wasn't his night.

Dhairya rounded off his superb season by beating Keith Ingram on Board 2 to bring us level. We are so blessed with fantastic juniors and just like Dylan, Dhairya has grown and grown as the season has progressed. He really is a special talent. 

Dan has also been a revelation this year, and he did a great job of bringing the full point home against Kim Gilbert on Board 5. I am glad from a blood pressure perspective that I didn't see the end of this one, as Dan told me afterwards that he had been below 20 seconds at one point. But he got the job done, and Dan has been a major find for the club this year.

All of which meant that we were winning 2.5 - 1.5, but I needed to draw with Gordon Christie or we would lose on board count. I can't in all honesty say it was my best ever game. I wasn't happy with how I played the opening (although Fritz thinks it's OK) and I was certainly losing at one point. I dug deep and managed to completely turn the tables, not only beating back Gordon's attack but also picking up a pawn in the process. I seemed to be in full control, but it was Gordon's turn to play well. Fritz has highlighted that I did miss a win, but we were both below 3 minutes at that point, and even now I can see why a human would have played what I did, so I can't beat myself up too much. Ultimately we ended up knight and 3 (me) vs knight and 2 (Gordon) but all the pawns were on the same side of the board. I still had in my mind that I should win (because of the earlier position rather than what I had now, which Fritz scores as dead level), but clearly there was nothing doing. Even when Gordon offered me the draw I hesitated, but I certainly wouldn't have been happy if someone else turned down a  draw that would have won us the cup, so I took it. We were the U8750 Champions!

It's been a great team effort. Dan and Dhairya both scored 3/3 on our cup run. I also clocked in with 2.5/3, which is somewhat better than my contribution to last year's cup triumph when I lost in the semi-final and final. That's the beauty of chess, when things go wrong, there will always be another opportunity.

I'm so proud of our team, all of whom (along with others) also contributed to the C team success in the League. They say that it is better to travel than to arrive, and that's probably true, but let's enjoy the moment. I doubt we'll ever do a quadruple again, but next season will bring with it new opportunities and new adventures. So here's to that, and a bit of a holiday first, to contemplate all that we have delivered.

Stop Press: Kenilworth win Open and U8750 Cups, to complete historic quadruple!!

 Full match reports and details of the open-top bus parade through Kenilworth to follow...

Savour the moment. 

Division 1 Champions

Division 2 Champions

Open Cup Champions

U8750 Cup Champions

Get in!!

It's Deja Vu All Over Again, Again as KCC Dominate at the LDCL Blitz

Two years ago KCC managed a clean sweep of the podium at the annual LDCL Blitz Championship, as Javier led home myself and Bruce while posting a perfect 9/9 score. Last year our domination was slightly more muted, but Javier and Bruce still tied for the title, so it could hardly be called a failure. Jump forward to this year's event, held last night at Solihull, and it was almost as though we were back in 2023. Javier once again reeled off 9 successive wins to obliterate the field and I again followed at a respectable distance (7 pts), while this time round it was Keatan (6.5 pts) who completed the clean sweep. And Bruce (6 pts) then followed in 4th= place to make it an even more impressive night than 2 years ago. If Ben had won his last round he would also have finished 4th=, but as it was he had to settle for 9th= with 5 pts.

There were, unavoidably, plenty of intra-KCC encounters. Javier beat myself, Keatan and Bruce; I beat Bruce and Ben while losing to Keatan and Javier; Keatan beat me and Bruce but lost to Javi; Bruce beat Ben but lost to Javi, me and Keatan; and Ben did the decent thing and lost to me and Bruce!

32 players, but you'll have to make do with the top 23. 

As well as finishing third, Keatan also won the U-1800 prize (I know - what a bandit!) even though he should probably have been the number two seed. (This also kept this cup in KCC keeping, as Bernard won it last year!) Which meant that he got a cup to display and so, of course, did Javi, which left me looking like a bit left out in the post-event photo of the podium finishers!

They say blitz is a young person's game - so spot the outlier in this photo! Interestingly we finished in height order, but not in age order, which would have been my preferred sequence. As long as it was top down!

I wouldn't normally contemplate even for a moment repeating a musical selection here, but as its so apt I don't think I have much alternative. Indeed, this could well become an annual tradition the way things are going! So many congratulations to Javi on his third consecutive LDCL Blitz title. He was indeed just perfect.