Report – 24 February 2017

 

Prize Night Tournament - Handicap Lightning

 

Tonight’s prize night and associated were a success as always, with a rivetting tournament following the allocation of trophies to last year’s prize winners.

 

Two special guests came along tonight: triple Flood Cup winner Phillip Kirkman; and Metin Ozaslan who had flown in from Qatar specially to attend this event (or some might say it was a useful coincidence).

 

Eleven players presented themselves for the tournament and were divided into two groups, with the top two players progressing to the semi-final stage.

As in previous years, time handicaps were applied to players based on performance at the recent Lightning Tournament, or on ACF ratings if they has missed this tournament.

 

Group stage

 

Results in the group stage were as follows.

 

Group A

POINTS

Handicap

Martin Laizans

4.0

1.0

Tony Howes

4.0

2.0

Andrew Robinson

3.0

0.0

Adam Morris

2.0

3.0

Metin Ozaslan

2.0

1.0

Brian Willcock

0.0

3.0

 

Martin played like he did in the first week of the Lightning Tournament rather than the second week, and comfortably qualified through the group stage.

Tony Howes won all of his group matches except against Metin, benefiting from a generous handicap after a below average result in last week’s Lightning Tournament.

A play-off between Tony Howes and Andrew Robinson occurred to decide second place in this group. As this was due to a calculation error, it was fortunate Tony won the game anyway, and progressed to the semi-finals.

Metin suffered the effects of jetlag and took a few matches to find any form, losing the first few, but winning later against Tony Howes and Brian Willcock.

 

Group B

POINTS

Handicap

Joshua Morris

3.0

1.0

Phillip Kirkman

2.0

1.0

Andrew Mather

2.0

0.0

Evgeny Voloshko

2.0

1.0

Tony Morris

1.0

2.0

Play-offs: A random draw was made for two rounds of games to decide second place:

Andrew MatherEvgeny Voloshko 1-0

Phillip Kirkman – Andrew Mather 1-0

 

Group B was very close with a three way tie for second place.

Andrew Mather seemed the most likely winner, but Phil Kirkman provided an upset to make it to the semi-finals.

 

Semi-Finals

Martin LaizansPhillip Kirkman 0-1

Joshua Morris – Tony Howes 1-0

 

Third Place Match

Not Played

 

Final

Joshua Morris – Phillip Kirkman 1-0

 

Phil Kirkman continued to defy the odds, brought on by a long period of chess inactivity, and made it all the way through to the Final.

The Final Match was where Phil’s run ended, with Joshua Morris winning and claiming this tournament for the first time.

 

 

CONSOLATION MATCHES

Not Played

 

 

Further information:

Past winners of the Handicap Lightning tournament (with index to past tournaments)

Results of tonight’s tournament in are presented here in detail.

 

 

 

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