I attended a Blitz tournament this evening between teams of 6 in schools in the Birmingham area. It was pleasing to see 14 teams in attendance, a high attendance compared with what it was in the olden days when I played in it.
The tournament was split into sections of 5 and 9, and run on a Jamboree basis. KE Camp Hill won the top section. KES 3 beat KES 2 to win the second section, which sounds unexpected, but KES 3 was in reality an Under 13 team, and had comparable strength to KES 2.
The notable incidents of the evening were:
(1) 1 e4 e5 2 Qh5 f6 1-0
(2) Two players played on long after both of their analogue clocks flags fell. KRR v K. However, K played an illegal move. (Pleasing that none of the kids dived in at any stage to point it out - they knew they shouldn't!)
(3) One player complained that his clock wasn't working. The clock showed 4:59, as opposed to 4.59. (This happened last year!)
(4) A stalemate and a flag down simultaneously - it was demonstrable that the stalemate happened first upon investigation.
(5) A back-rank mate which had the following sequence Rc8# (Black moves) Rc8-e8#. White hadn't declared mate after Rc8, and Black instantly moved due to time trouble, realised it was illegal, but hadn't realised he was already in checkmate until white played Re8 in reply just as briskly.
(6) A player was winning on time and over the board. K+lots v K. K+lots made no effort to defend his lots, resorting to instantaneous moving in a bid to win on time. Unfortunately, it got down to KN v K when K still had time on his clock.
Most importantly, it seemed like everyone enjoyed the evening.
