Prize Night Tournament - Handicap Lightning
Prize Night
The night commenced with the presentation of prizes to tournament and trophy winner for 2012.
Tonight’s prizes, including the engraving of the perpetual trophies, and small trophies for last year’s winners, were excellently organised by John.
Handicap Lightning Tournament
The Handicap Lightning tournament started tonight with a single group as only seven players entered. Ray was also present but declined to enter. The top two would play off for the title.
The handicap system is based on a system of handicaps awarded on playing strength. The handicaps are determined by rating, with 2000+ players having a zero handicap (‘playing off scratch’), 1900-1999 having a ½ point handicap, 1800-1899 1 point etc, down to a player under 799 has a 6.5 point handicap. Before each game the difference between the 2 players’ handicaps is calculated, with the lower rated player having 5 minutes in the game to make all moves. The higher rated player is allocated 5 minutes minus the handicap difference (but must have at least one minute). For example, if the difference is 1.5 then the higher rated player will receive 3.5 minutes to make their moves.
Round-robin
Results in the group stage were as follows. The top two players proceeded to a play-off match (regardless of whether there was an outright winner on points).
|
Group A |
POINTS |
Handicap |
|
Andrew Mather |
5.0 |
1.0 |
|
George Flitcroft-Smith |
4.0 |
0.0 |
|
Martin Laizans |
4.0 |
1.5 |
|
John Ryland |
3.0 |
6.0 |
|
Andrew Robinson |
2.0 |
0.0 |
|
Tony Howes |
2.0 |
0.0 |
|
Russell Lyons |
1.0 |
1.5 |
Note: Head-to-head results used as a tie-break
In the group stage it was Andrew Mather, George and Martin who were the main contenders, with Andrew Robinson losing his first three games, and Tony failing to beat anyone except the two finalists.
John made the most of his large handicap advantage (he was erroneously given a handicap of 6.0 by the inept DOP and therefore played 5 minutes vs 1 minute against all opponents – John’s handicap should have been 4.0).
In fact, if John had claimed a win on time in his first game, in which Martin checkmated him moments later, it may well have been John who made the final.
Martin was unlucky to have lost his game against George and therefore his title defence fell to the slimmest of margins.
However, Martin was pleased to be able to return the perpetual trophy for this tournament, which he regards as ugly!
Final
Andrew Mather –George Flitcroft-Smith 1-0
The players agreed to forgo playing classification games to decided 3rd-4th and 5th-6th to concentrate on the Final Match itself.
With the tension raised by a crowd of onlookers, Andrew Mather overcame George to win the tournament, making up for his final loss last year.
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.