The Grunfeld was a scrappy affair with everyone dropping games apart from Martin, and he left after 2 games to watch the football!
The normal blitz saw Keith on good form and Peter on bad but very lucky form.
King of the Hill is always a tough mental work out, especially when defending against king charges towards the centre. Richard Allis arrived a little late, had never played before, and didn't even know the rules when he started but still came second - good going!
Streak scoring magnifies differences and in fact the blitz was quite a close affair, with the results being decided on just a couple of games.
As previously the Wednesday after the Monday team event was a relatively quiet affair. In the Scotch themed arena Jamie was the clear winner. He came dangerously close to a clean sweep but dropped a draw by giving stalemate when a Q+2 up versus a loan king!
In the normal blitz there was quite scrap for second place with Steven pulling off a fine swindle in a lost position to take the points off Reenen and edge him into 4th place on tie break.
The Scandinavian gave rise to plenty of manouevering and some tight games. It was a close run affair with tie-break deciding first place.
The normal blitz was anything but close run! Oscar most impressively won nine games in a row setting a 32 point record for a Ringwood Tournament event. He made most of his games look easy with perahps Robert Halse giving him the toughest challenge.
Keith's performance was notable too. Of his three losses two were for being absent from the board when the game started (making tea!) and one was a loss on time in a trivially won position. Given streak scoring this cost him dearly and the overall result might have been a bit closer were it not for this.
The Chess 960 almost seemed like normality after some of the other variants. There were many long, hard fought games.
In the normal blitz many people were complaining about blundering. Perhaps we all need to some slow chess to get our blitz up to scratch again!
The weren't many traditional quiet QIDs in evidence as people in general eschewed g3 for white. It was a close run affair with both leaders losing in the last "round" but Richard emerged victorious.
Keith was back on form and went through the normal blitz undefeated to take first place again.
The first thing everyone noticed at the start of King of the Hill was Christian's rating. He had been practicing! And it showed when he played, as he won all six of his games.
Once again this proved a popular variant, including with Reenen who had never played it before but nonetheless comfortably picked up second place.
In the normal blitz, nobody was on the dominating form shown by Keith the previous week, with everybody having their share of howlers so it was a close run affair.
Billed as a Kings Indian, the starting position for the themed event also allowed Grunfelds of which there were a few played. As far I can see there were no classical KIDs played at all, so sadly we missed the spectacle of the classic kingside pawn storm, though we were treated to a few 4 pawn attacks and Samisches. The main debate at the end of the tournament was on the merits of the Grunfeld with Christian saying (modestly and wittily as usual) he did not understand it at all: "I end up a pawn down and almost in zugzwang! "
The normal blitz was a very close run affair with the first seven places evenly spaced by one point each.
As usual the variant competition was run as an Arena and for the first time on a Monday evening the normal blitz was run as a seven round Swiss, hence the lower scores.
Three check chess had a mixture of people who had played it back in April and those who were new to it. None of us were experts by any means but even the few games played previously proved a great advantage to the former group, but everyone was learning fast. It is one of the more entertaining variants - it retains enough normal chess feel whilst making you think afresh. After losing the first game to Martin, Peter managed to win the rest to take first.
The normal blitz was the Keith Gregory show. He never appeared to be in trouble and as usual when he is on form he looked very classy in winning his games. The diagram shows a position from one of his games, where as black he has just played Be3+. The game continued Bxe3 and black went on to win. If instead white had played Nd2 Keith had intended Bxg4! Nxb6 axb6 saccing his queen for two minor pieces but with as he put it "an almost permanent pin".
As a spectator of the blitz I have to say all the games were entertaining with some splendid fighting chess being played.
The Philidor may have a reputation for being passive but produces rich middlegames as refelcted in the games here. It was a low scoring event with the first three finishers losing plenty of games between them, but Adam edged out the opposition with a 4 games streak in the middle.
The blitz was not so close with Keith winning comfortably.
For an opening that is meant to be placid the Reti produced a remarkable number of games where one side was winning after just a few moves. It's not that there were tactical fireworks, it was just that pretty much no-one (including the winner) really understood what was going on in the opening and dropped pawns, minor pieces or just got their men badly out of position.
The blitz was a close run affair decided in the last seconds of the Arena.
In the Antichess there was a run-away winner: David Bradley-Brock won eight of his nine games, more than once turning round a difficult position in the last stages of the game. Robert Halse came a clear second
Peter Anderson won the normal blitz and Robert was again clear second, with just their head-to-head game splitting them.
The Vienna opening produces a few Vienna Gambits, plenty of Four Knights and a whole variety of offshoots. A mixture of tactical middlegames and grindy endgames resulted. Robert and Martin both lost their first game and then proceeded to win the rest with Robert managing to get through one more game than Martin.
In the normal blitz Richard used the family tactic of ripping through a large number of games to take first place.
There were a record 14 players for a Monday and 6 of them brave enough to try Horde Chess.
This variant again proved entertaining. The usual tactic for black is to try to punch through the white masses with sacs and get his queen in behind the pawns. But in a few games it became apparent that this is not in itself a guarantee of success as whilst the queen can mop up plenty of pawns it remains a challenge to prevent one from queening and as in normal chess a single tempo can make all the difference.
This week the blitz was a closely fought affair with first and second places only being split because of the number of games completed.
There was very little theory in evidence in the Chigorin arena which I guess goes with it being a bit obscure and a bit weird to boot. Most people played safe with white and headed towards a normal-ish, level-ish position rather than play for a big advantage and end up in one of the many forms of Chigorin madness. But some players at least enjoyed it. John Weatherlake: "Love that opening - and what i did to it!!!!"
The blitz was a close run affair with the decisive game being Martin S's trashing of Peter in the penultimate "round".
Welcome to local legend Bruce Jenks who joined in our online events for the first time.
Racing Kings proved once again to be skillful but nobody’s favourite variant. The quality of play seemed to improve as the session went on, notably by Christian who won his last 4 to take first.
In the blitz Martin S was on excellent form and returned a 2496 performance which I believe is the highest to date in our on-line events.
Bloodthirstiness abounded in the Evans Gambit: plenty of sacs and only one draw for the whole arena. While many players rattled through 5 or 6 games, Ken Smith took his time and took first place with 4 straight wins.
Keith Gregory took the blitz with a streak of five wins in the middle.
This was the first Monday evening run as an pen night rather than a club night and Ringwood players were joined by Peter Manning from New Milton who duly took a podium place in the blitz.
Atomic chess again proved quite a challenge for everyone. Merlin showed his ability and took first place, losing only one game and that only because of a rule he did not understand. The diagram shows the final position from his game where he was playing white aganist Dan – if the white queen is taken the black king is exploded so it is checkmate.
Unsurprisingly the Nimzo Indian led to more postional play and longer games on average than other themed openings. Paul Kemp took his first podium place with a convincing second place, whilst Ian Clark notched up his second podium in his second Ringwood tournament.
Martin Simons took a deserved first place in the blitz without losing a game.
We started again on the chess variants, going backwards through the set, so it was Crazyhouse again. This time there were just 3 players but the games were all hard fought and interesting.
Three more people turned up for the normal blitz to make a respectable sized field, with a tie at the top courtesy of some last round berserking in a game that finished just seconds inside the arena time limit.
The Benko proved a tricky choice for many players, producing a lot of opening deviations and some short games. There were also a few Benko specialists in the field who knew the key themes and scored well. Keith took first places despite losing his first game due to problem with his hardware, with Robert edging out Martin S for second.
Martin took his revenge in the blitz by virtue of completing eight games. Ollie Willson was one a several players joining for the first time and he picked up third place with 4 straight wins, including one on Berserk (half the time, no increment) which is quite a challenge.
Crazyhouse attracted only 5 players which was a pity as it is one of the best chess variants. If you have captured a piece you can drop it on the board instead of making a move. The diagram shows a typical crazyhouse position with black having dropped attacking pieces onto f1, g2 and h1 and a defensive pawn on f6, whilst white has dropped a knight onto f5. Martin Simons won all six of his games to take first place convincingly.
Martin Clancy won the blitz with a streak of 6 games from the start, beating second placed Peter in round two along the way.
The games in the Budapest themed event split between quite a few mainline theory games (with the usual resulting good endgames for white) and minor lines / made up lines with a large amount of chaos and victories for both sides. Richard Allis took first place without losing a game in earnest (his one loss was for missing the start of a game).
Peter Anderson took the blitz with 6 straight wins. There were notable high scoring performances from Jamie Doyle and Richard Ursell in taking 2nd and 3rd.
Atomic chess certainly proved a challenge but popular with most players. For those of you who have not played it, whenever a piece is captured not only does it disappear but so do the adjacent pieces (but not pawns) and the capturing piece. The diagram shows the end of a 3 move game: 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Ne5 d6 3.Nxf7 and the black king is blown up (along with the black bishop and knight and the white knight).
Martin C had not played this before but showed a good feel for the game and duly won, though he said he thought he was playing worse as the night went on. This is the one variant where it might actually be easier if you have not played chess before!
Returning to the sanity of normal chess, Martin S was on tactically sharp form and took first place.
In the Najdorf themed tournament Russell took first place by virtue of rattling through an incredible 10 games in the hour, playing in his usual open style.
It was a good night for Highcliffe with Christian, Robert and Ken all taking podium places.
Another good night as Merlin joined in the fun for the first time.
Racing Kings was certainly a brain workout and pretty skillful but I think it is safe to say it was nobody's favourite as it was not very chess-like. Perhaps it would grow on us if we played it some more or perhaps it is best written off? With a very lucky escape against Richard, Peter managed to take first place.
Christian took the blitz despite an early loss by virtue of a four game winning streak in the middle.
This week a double victory for Peter Anderson in this pair of events, but that hardly tells the real story of either as he was nearly caught in both by players who turned up late.
In the Alekhine's themed event Ian Clark played for just 4 games and won all four against strong opponents and came second on tie-break, edging out John Weatherlake. This was Ian's first time on Lichess, so he had to get used to the interface as well play good chess. Also notable was Ken Smith who plays under the nickname Ken_Alekhine and who got off to a flyng start with 3 wins out of 4, eventually finishing 7th.
In the normal blitz Keith Gregory won 6 straight games, which included a comprehensive demolition of Peter, to take second place with a stunning 2421 performance.
Welcome to David Bacon who joined us online for the first time for a few games of Horde.
Horde at first sight looks like an easy win for the pawns but it turns out it is not so clear-cut - black sacs pieces to break through and tries to mop up pawns with his queen. It's a more challenging and entertaining game than it initially looks. Robert Halse is building a reputation as a good player of these weird variants and despite a couple of losses notched up five wins to take first place.
There was a bit of problem with the start of the blitz as the event was not showing up properly in Lichess (it still isn't) but it got underway once Martin messaged everyone with the link. Sadly no berserking from Adam at blitz this week (very sensible!) and he shared top spots with Peter after Martin S and Christian could not quite close their final games out before the tournament cut-off.
There was a record entry for these events with five new players taking part for the first time: David Bradley-Brock, John Weatherlake, Mike Duggan, Russell Pegg and Tim Jones (apologies to anyone I have missed). Welcome to all.
The themed event started 1.d5 f5 and gave rise to Stonewalls, Classical Dutches, Leningrads, Staunton Gambits and many sidelines, and some very interesting games. John Weatherlake lost his first game and then with his usual fighting style and a bit of help from the clock won five in a row to take first place.
Mike Duggan drew one game and won seven to take the normal blitz first place. Whilst he was worse in a couple of games he was never competely lost at any point, which is quite an achievement over 8 blitz games.
There were new winners in both events tonight, with Jamie taking the Semi-Tarrasch themed section and Adam taking the blitz. Both were shrewd in using the Berserk feature which gives you extra points in return for losing half your time. Adam was aided by the blitz being 5 min + 3 sec this week instead of the usual 3 min + 3 sec, the latter being really tough at Berserk as you also lose your increment! Christian once again proved consistent picking up 3rd place in both events.
A big welcome to Malcolm who joined us for the first time online.
King of the Hill proved entertaining with all the players being novices at it. It led to some interesting king charges towards the centre, with some being successful and others resulting in the king being mated or vast material lost. The word “insane” appeared a few times in the chat.
The blitz resulted in yet another win Martin Simons, who afterwards said he was “just lucky”. As Gary Player said, “The more I practice the luckier I get.”
The first thing to say is that the server and tournaments ran smoothly, which was a relief after Saturday’s problems.
The 960 was certainly “interesting” and a real brain work out. A few of us had trouble with diagonals early in the game. As expected, we got a real mix of games some of which looked quite like standard chess and some of which were just weird. 960 is definitely worth another outing in a few weeks time. That said, the normal blitz felt positively relaxing by comparison!
There was an excellent turnout for the first open evening and we are hopeful of having even more players in the coming weeks.
Martin Simons was on impressive form, not losing a game all evening (the loss recorded at the start of the Winawer thematic was due to a glitch) and wrapped up both events.
You either love or hate the Winawer, but it was a great choice for a thematic tournament. As Christian Westrap said in the chat “It’s awful for both sides.” There was some debate about the next thematic opening (Kings Gambit, Ruy Lopez…?) but we will have to wait to see what Martin Clancy has planned for us.