New 2008 Grades Published

The ECF have today published the new 2008 grades. Click here to see what your new (or first) grade is.

The new list needs a little explanation. Firstly there are [as usual] 2 cateories of grade, standardplay and rapidplay (shown as R_Grade). But each player now has 2 grades in each category!

Why? Well, there has been deflation in the grading system for a number of years and the ECF have sought to fix that this year. The 2008 Grade coloumn shows your new grade calculated in the normal way - this is your official grade and will be used for County matches, congresses etc. The New Style grade is the deflation fixing grade. It will become the official grade next year 2009 and in advance of that the Leicestershire League has decided to use this grade for league games in 2008-9.

Anything the 2nds can do !

We couldn't allow the second team to progress further than us , just imagine the crowing back at the club !! So albeit because Wigston had a weakened team , we were only 1/2 point down in the handicap stakes . With the "boy wonder" on our side how could we fail ?!
Sean's early win set us fair , then Brandon unfortunately fell foul of perpetual check , but Graham and myself both won to see us comfortably home 31/2 - 1

Result :
Steve Smith 1/2 Brandon !/2
John Daniel 0 Sean 1
Ray Townsend 0 Pete H 1
Brian Shuter 0 Graham B 1

Well done to everyone , and as the draw has been kind to us we'll hopefully meet the seconds in the final !!

Wylie Cup v Loughborough

So we (Graham Sharpe, Brandon Clarke, Sean Hewitt and Howard Phillips) racked up to play a strong Loughborough team. There were a total of 4 grading points in it!

Brandon got us off to a great start putting Alan Jex to the sword. Then Terry Adcock dropped a piece against Howard to put us 2-0 up. I won the exchange so all looked well but then it all went wrong and in the end I was lucky to get a draw with Dave Farrall. Finally John Mitchell beat Graham to leave us 2.5-1.5 up at the break.

Round 2 and Brandon won easily again to put us back on track but I got seriously duffed up to put us back on a knife edge. Graham drew his second game putting us 4-3 up but unfortunately [for us] Terry Adcock got a fearsome kingside attack and there was no way Howard could survive.

So very close on paper and so it proved over the board ; 4-4 the final result.

Littlethorpe Giant Killers Do Enough

Littlethorpe 2 qualified for the Semi-final of the Chapman Cup last night.
We played six boards, at home, against an extremely strong Scraptoft Valley team.
With a 4.5 point bonus due to grade differences, we only needed 1 point from the six games to give us 5.5 of the available 10.5 points and win us the match.

Results were:

Howard Phillips (119) 0 Alan Edwards (180) 1
Andy Johnson (117) 0 John Pattinson (132) 1
Mick Slater (75) 0 Mick Tate (131) 1
Lloyd Clarke (71) 0 Bob Collins (128) 1
Colin Ross (70) 1 Dave Pratt (109) 0
Ray Beach (68) 0 Mick Busby (94) 1

Outgraded on every board, we put in some good performances. Lloyd lost on time from what was at least a drawing position, and Howard, too, looked set for a draw.

In the semi-final we will be at home against Market Harborough on Tuesday, 5th August.

In the other semi, Littlethorpe 1 play away against Ashby.