County Champs 1st Round

There were mixed results for Heathcote Arms players in the first round of the CCs.
Dave Ricketts was the first to win a point when his opponent did not arrive.
David Reynolds had gone to the Heathcote Arms, first, and so was late arriving. Whilst he was waiting for David, Rob opened with e4 and started the clock. This was an unusual move for Rob as he is usually a d4 man, and it was a move that he came to regret as David beat him with his French Defence.
Ray managed a decent draw with the black pieces against Dennis Wilkins.
Some bloke from up north beat Graham Sharpe's Caro Kann.
There was a lot of head shaking as Graham B lost with the white pieces against Phil Horspool.
As usual, i was on the last board still playing. In a double edged game that could have gone either way, John Daniel declined my offer of a draw and a couple of moves later allowed me to capture his queen. There followed a number of moves to make very quickly and John resigned when we reached the time control. This was my best result in over a year.

Open Section
Sean Hewitt (FIDE 1951) 1-0 Graham Sharpe (FIDE 2198)
Graham Booley (FIDE 1906) 0-1 Phil Horspool (FIDE 2146)

Major Section
John Daniel (130) 0-1 Colin Ross (112)
Rob Ensor (NG) 0-1 David Reynolds (128)

Minor Section
Dennis Wilkins (109) Draw Ray Beach (90)
Dave Ricketts (104) 1-0 Win by Default Alan Butler (92)

Afterwards, those of us who were still around had a beer with Sean in the bar.

There is a lot of chess to play over the summer and not many dates have yet been fixed. We want to continue to have some decent club nights too, but whether these happen in any particular week will depend on what else is going on. I will try and indicate here in the blog whether club night will happen or not.

There will definately be a club night on Tuesday 8th June as Dave and Ray will be there. I will not be at club night as i will be playing a CC game against Stan Parsons at the Red Admiral on Wednesday 9th.

Well done everyone,

Colin