Monday, September 29, 2008

Club News: The Season Starts

Welcome back to the club news slot, which again will be featured fortnightly on Mondays - starting today with two bits of news.

And our first bit of club news is, alas, bad news. Drunken Knights can certainly put out a strong first team when they want to in the London League, as their victory over last season's Champions Wood Green showed. And on Monday 22nd against ourselves, they put out a very strong team indeed - including no less than an International Master on board six . . . We succumbed 6½-3½ on the night, with two games adjourned.

Secondly, a date for your diary: Tuesday 7th October, 7.30pm. And a location: Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, our home venue. And the reason? We will be holding a Blindfold Simultaneous Display, with FIDE Master Rawle Allicock bravely taking on 7 to 10 of our club players. Any bets on the final score?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom

That's nothing, Athaneum in strongest order will have an IM on board 12.

From

http://www.athenaeumchessclub.com/


Cornette
Cherniaev
Williams
Thorarinsson
Barrett
Chesters
Anthony
Spreeuw
Thompson
Koneski
Quinn
Wade


Carsten

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Wood Green who'll probably have a GM on board 12.

Is this because this is such a depressing thought for non-Wood Green players so it's best not mentioned?

Does this make Division 1 of the London League the dullest in England?

Anonymous said...

Wood Green rarely have a GM on board 12, but it's taken as given they'll put out a very strong side for each game. So it's not worth mentioning for that reason . . . and also because they weren't the team we actually faced Monday last. Drunken Knights don't always put out such a strong team - we drew last year with them, and beat them the season before, for instance.

I don't find the London League dull, at all! So if it is dullest - the rest must be very intriguing indeed.

~Tom.

Anonymous said...

I refer the right honourable gentlemen to past London League Division 1 results;

Wood Green have won every season for the past 6 seasons with match points of;

10/11
11/11
10½/11
10/11
11/11
10½/11

'Predictable' is perhaps a better word than 'dull' :-)

Anonymous said...

In the majority of those years, had the result between Wood Green and their closet rivals been reversed then a different team would have won. And that doesn't include the year they won on Game points.

Richard

ejh said...

Personally, I used to quite like playing against Wad Green because it was a chance to take on a much stronger player: this is one of the reasons that I play. I very much enjoyed the challenge of playing Desmond Tan a few seasons ago, for instance (and annoying the hell out of him by taking the game to two full sessions).

There is, of course, something dull and even problematic about a league that gets won by the same team every year, but as long as that team doesn't become the tail that wags the dog, it's not immensely important.

Jonathan B said...

I played (on bottom board) a 160ish BCF guy when we played Wood Green last year