Rapidplay results

[Jonathan Rogers]

Much as it pains me to speak of another's team's success, I thought I'd be a good sport and report briefly on the victory of Sons of Anarchy at the Team Rapidplay yesterday. As you might guess from the team name, they were captained by Ben Purton, and headed by Tom Rendle and Peter Roberson (both around 230 at rapidplay) with Sam Williams, Liam Varnam and Ben alternating between boards 3 and 4. Tom and Peter played to form and, I think, made a plus score against the 4 GMs at the venue (Watson, Parker, Arkell and Gormally; not to mention Matt Piper, who made a monster 2850 performance last year and 5.5/6 in his other games this year). SoA also started to rack up the points on boards 3 and 4 at the end of the event, enabling them to finish with two 4-0 wins and to overtake Barbican 1 on gamepoints in the last round.

You might spare a thought for Barbican 1, averaging around 225 (Parker, Piper, Cox and myself) who won every match, and only lost three games over the boards during the day, and who probably played up to their average grade. However, my late arrival led to a default loss in the first round, an unfortunate event which always hung over us (given that gamepoints would decide the outcome) and without a reserve we also started to drop a bit on the bottom board at the end of the day, thus allowing ourselves to be overtaken. I don't actually know of any other example of a team having 100% on matchpoints and still losing out on gamepoints - does anyone else?! But it is true that using gamepoints does make the event more exciting, and by only losing 1.5-2.5 to Barbican 1 in round 3, SoA ensured that they were always in striking distance - and in the end they duly struck.

In case you are wondering, Watson played for the Metropolitan Police, and Arkell and Gormally for Drunken Knights. But unless I have forgotten someone, there was not any other GM or even IM than the players mentioned above, so the competition was much weaker than last year. It is well known that entries were down, but perhaps surprisingly, it was mostly the stronger teams of last year who did not play this year: Lawrence' s team of GMs, and Claire's P&P team of even more GMs were absent, as were the IMs from last year's Bristol, Cambridge and the Youth team.

I hope the event goes ahead again - it was impeccably organised this year - but we shall have to see: one cannot expect anyone to run a loss-making event.

For some reason, the team event results are not on the site, but the individual championship (played today) is being updated! Arkell and Gormally jointly led after five rounds and were about to have a shoot-out in round six.

Well done again to Ben and his team.

[LozCooper]

Thanks for the update. The most GMs I fielded in the competition was two

[Jonathan Rogers]

Yes, I didn't mean that your entire team was composed of GMs

In fact the Rapidplay has now been won three times out of four by a team with no GMs!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks from me as well for that report, Jonathan. Was there live game transmission like last year?

Photos here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/1075068736 ... eJonManley

Links to 4NCL website pages are here:

http://www.4ncl.co.uk/rapidplay_2011.htm

Currently Arkell, Gormally and Richardson tied on 5/6. Chan, Rendle, Roberson and Jameson in the chasing pack (4.5/6).

[Mike Truran]

No live transmission this year I'm afraid - as Jonathan says, the event ran at a loss, so we decided to save that element of the costs.

We will almost certainly run the event again next year, but will need to review the prize fund, which is too high given current entry levels. I'm not sure though that most players play for the money anyway! We had no prize money at all at our recent Witney Rapidplay, only trophies and medals, and entries increased from the previous year. Maybe this topic merits a thread in its own right?

This year, unlike last, the event seemed to run pretty faultlessly from what I saw of it on the Saturday (thank you Jonathan for your kind comments!), so hopefully that will encourage more teams and players next year.

[Paul Cooksey]

Maybe this topic merits a thread in its own right?

Keep up Mike!

Happy to hear Witney RP was a success. I worried I might be one of many rugby fans absent.

[Mike Truran]

Oops.

[Adam Raoof]

Maybe this topic merits a thread in its own right?

Keep up Mike!

I know that most people don't care too much about the prizes when entering tournaments, though they might look at the grading limits for each section, whether they are free on that day/weekend and the practicalities ofhow to get there. The 4NCL rapidplay is close to half term, and perhaps that is one factor? Edit: oh yes, the rugby!

I run a monthly First Thursday Blitz at Hendon Chess Club with cash prizes, and we get about 20 regular entries. Harrow (ECF Club of the Year 2011) run an annual quickplay (a 10 minute blitz in fact) with no prizes and get almost 50 players!

http://www.harrowchessclub.org.uk/quickplay2011.html

[benedgell]

Congrats to my teammates- winning with Varnam in the team is a hell of an effort

Incidentally in the Devon Team Rapidplay they run it similarly, with gamepoints taking precidence over matchpoints. I believe Tiverton won every match one year and finished second by virtue of scraping through most of them 2.5-1.5 whilst another team racked up 4-0s

For what its worth I'd love to play in the 4ncl rapidplay, but it's 170 miles each way if I get a lift or a nightmare with public transport.

[Alex Holowczak]

The 4NCL rapidplay is close to half term, and perhaps that is one factor?

We've held the Birmingham Rapidplay clashing with half-term, and nowhere near half-term, and we found it made virtually no difference.

[Alex Holowczak]

Just wanted to add my thanks from the Penyffordd team.
We were pleasantly surprised to win the team rating prize, and I guess one of the problems for Mike and his team was that only 6 teams qualified for this section.
this is the first time we have entered this competition, but we will certainly be back, the organisation is superb and the venue very convenient.
Thanks again to all involved

I was only there on the Sunday, and despite my fledgling performance, I echo these sentiments.

[Mike Truran]

Detailed individual results here:

http://www.tournamentdirector.co.uk/res ... tyle=Local

Detailed team results to follow as soon as they are available.

[Adam Raoof]

OK, have three sections for the rapidplay and you will definitely add at least 50 more entries to the event! Alex H can run them

[Mike Truran]

That was Alex's view as well.

Great minds......

[Kevin Williamson]

. I don't actually know of any other example of a team having 100% on matchpoints and still losing out on gamepoints - does anyone else?!

Good question Jonathan. This happened at the 2000 BCF counties team rapidplay at Bedford Modern School, won by Yorkshire. Warwickshire were the only team to win all four matches (including their encounter with Yorkshire) but lost out on game points.

I managed to find an old link (2nd article from the top):

http://www.soszynski.btinternet.co.uk/wca/results.html

I was also present this weekend, and agree with the positive comments above. My own team didn’t do particularly well, but it was good to see one of my team-mates, Peter Hunt, win the U176 grading prize in the individual event.