4NCL Div 3 North 4-5 Feb Barcelo Majestic Hotel Harrogate

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LawrenceCooper
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4NCL Div 3 North 4-5 Feb Barcelo Majestic Hotel Harrogate

Post by LawrenceCooper » Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:16 pm

4NCL Division Three North 4-5 February Barcelo Majestic Hotel, Harrogate

My thanks to the Barcelo Majestic Hotel in Harrogate for hosting the third weekend of Division Three North and to the arbiters Lara Barnes and Alex McFarlane. This was the final weekend before the league merges with Division Three South for the final five rounds.

Thankfully the adverse weather didn’t have too much of an impact on the weekend, although three players were prevented from playing but two reserves were found and just one defaulted occurred, on Sunday. I did hear one story of a player returning home on Saturday who took seven hours to get home which may partly be explained by having to abandon his car and walk the last couple of miles! Fortunately, he wasn’t required to make the return journey on Sunday.

North East England led by two points from Bradford & Jorvik going into round five. A surprise defeat for David Walker on top board for North East England against David Barlow of Bradford and a loss on board six contributed to his team losing their hundred per cent record but wins on boards two and three for Andrew Lawson and Dave Edmunds ensured the team remained unbeaten.

Cheddleton 2 fielded an all Staffordshire line-up against Jorvik and wins for Paul Wallace from Lichfield on top board combined with wins for Gerald Acey and Malcolm Armstrong (both Stafford) along with Alex Richardson (ex Stafford) enabled them to defeat Jorvik 4-2 and catch them on match points.

Both Holmes Chapel and Manchester Manticores had yet to open their match point account and despite the former being outrated on the top two boards they scored 2/2 with wins for Chris Doran and Robert Clark whilst John Turner won on board four. The remaining three games were drawn meaning Holmes Chapel were off the mark with a 4.5-1.5 victory.

As all teams had now played each other once, round six had a jamboree format which by its unpredictable nature means that the total number of match points scored in the round could be anything from two to ten!

Cheddleton were the most successful team scoring four and a half from their six games with Paul Wallace, Alex Richardson and Malcolm Armstrong completing two out of two for the weekend and Roger Edwards replacing his son in the line-up albeit for a win by default against Manchester Manticores.

Both North East England and Jorvik scored 3.5 to earn themselves two match points whilst Bradford DCA B scored 3 to gain one match point. Holmes Chapel scored 2.5 and Manchester Manticores two draws, albeit they were deducted a game point for defaulting on board six meaning they actually received no game point for this round.

The completion of rounds one to six in this year’s Division Three North sees North East England on eleven match points in their debut season whilst three teams have eight; Bradford DCA B, Cheddleton 2 and Jorvik. Holmes Chapel have two and Manchester Manticores zero. This leaves North East England well placed to push for a promotion place when the league merges with Division Three South for the last five rounds with the three teams on eight points all in with a chance if they can score heavily at the last two weekends.

The latest results and league tables will shortly be available on the 4NCL website at these links: http://www.4ncl.livechess.co.uk/div3_20 ... 3n-rd4.htm (league table) http://www.4ncl.livechess.co.uk/div3_20 ... 3n-rd5.htm and http://www.4ncl.livechess.co.uk/div3_20 ... 3n-rd6.htm and (results). The hotel website can be found here: http://www.barcelo.com/BarceloHotels/en ... c/Home.htm

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