Basildon Chess Club

Basildon Chess Club Championship 2014/15

Group Matches

	Group A	PL	AGa	AGe	WR	BL	Pts		Group B	DK	TB	RM	BT	Pts
Q1	Peter R Laundy	x	1 0	1 ½	1 1	1 1	6½	Q1	David Kraszewski	x	1 0	1 ½	1 1	4½
Q2	Alaa Gamal	1 0	x	1 0	1 1	1 1	6	Q2	Tye A Byram	1 0	x	1 0	1 1	4
3	Arunas Gedvilas	½ 0	1 0	x	1 1	1 1	5½	3	Robert Mumford	½ 0	1 0	x	1 1	3½
4	William T Rippon	0 0	0 0	0 0	x	1 1	2	4	Ben Thompson	0 0	0 0	0 0	x	0
5	Bharath Lakshmanan	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 0	x	0

	Group C	JB	PS	DHW	TH	Pts			Group D	DM	SC	IR	JS	Pts
=Q1	Justin P Baptie	x	1 0	1 1	1 1	5		Q1	David J Millward	x	½ ½	½ 1	1 1	4½
=Q1	Paul Savin	1 0	x	1 1	1 1	5		Q2	Sean A Clarke	½ ½	x	0 1	1 1	4
3	Daniel AR Hardy-Wallace	0 0	0 0	x	1 1	2		3	D Ian W Reynolds	0 ½	0 1	x	1 1	3½
4	Tom Hedaux	0 0	0 0	0 0	x	0		4	Jeff Sheehan	0 0	0 0	0 0	x	0

Knockout Matches

Quarter Finals
18-Sep-2014	Tye A Byram	1-0	Alaa Gamal
18-Sep-2014	Sean A Clarke	0-1	David Kraszewski
18-Sep-2014	Justin P Baptie	½ 1-½ 0	David J Millward
18-Sep-2014	Peter R Laundy	1-0	Paul Savin

Semi Finals
06-Nov-2014	Tye A Byram	0-1	David Kraszewski
12-Feb-2015	Justin P Baptie	½ 1-½ 0	Peter R Laundy
Final
28-May-2015	David Kraszewski	½-½	Justin P Baptie

Group Reports Group A
This went to the final match ! Alaa after losing to Peter on Thursday 11th Sept got the point she needed in the final match. Arunas just failed by half a point to qualify. Bharath was playing in his first competitive matches and despite losing all his games in a difficult group, he played many good matches and will benefit from the experience for the forthcoming season. Bill was his usual self, he loves a good battle! A tough group to call so congrats to Peter and Alaa on their qualification.

Group B
Dave and Tye qualified through into the knockout stages. It went right down to the wire - Tye's excellent win against Dave K the previous week meant if he beat Ben he would qualify and it would leave Dave and Rob to fight it out for the other place. Dave beat Rob to qualify, though its hard not to feel sorry for Rob who must have thought after beating Tye and drawing with Dave in the earlier rounds he would be in pole position. He can feel very pleased with his efforts and a consolation is he is in line to take the under 130 prize after his showing. Ben was involved in a very tough group for him but put up some excellent performances in particularly a match against Dave K.

Group C
Paul and Justin both comfortably qualified through their group with 5/6. The group could have taken a different path had Daniel taken his chances in his first games with Paul and Justin. He missed almost a certain winning opportunity in both games. Daniel was more than a match for the favourites but when you have the chance to beat them you must take them as they don't come round very often! Hard luck to Daniel though - he is a tough competitor and you rarely get an easy game against him. Tom was a credit to the group, he certainly did not just turn up to get beat by the higher graded guys. He really enjoyed his chess in this championship and that's what its all about. Well done Tom.

Group D
This was the 'group of death' with a 160+, 170+ and a 180+ all in the same group. Poor Jeff heavily outgraded was faced with a near impossible task to get through but did admirably in the face of such a stiff task. Sorry about the draw Jeff ! The triangle of games between myself Dave and Ian was what was going to decide who qualified. Ian was the first to admit that maybe he should have qualified. Losing to myself in our 2nd game when maybe a draw was the order of the day. Also Ian lost to Dave in his final match with him when again maybe he was equal. I had two solid games with David and draws probably the right results. Shows how such a fine line can happen in chess and I'm sure Ian will be back next year to do better. He remains a class act !

Knockout Reports Quarter Finals
Thursday 18th September saw the quarter finals played. The games were fiercely contested resulting in all the games being pretty close ! There was one draw, between David M and Justin, so a replay was required. This took place on 6th November (alongside the first semi-final). Justin played a great game under time pressure and towards the end won David's queen. David was heavily pressurised despite having more time on his clock. Well played Justin, who will now face Peter Laundy in the semi-final.

Semi Finals
Thursday 6th November saw the first finalist Dave Krazewski. Congratulations to Dave in an enthralling match with Tye Byram. Hard luck to Tye who came so close to his first championship final.
Thursday 12th February, Justin and Peter had a hard fought draw. In the replay on 26th March, Justin finally prevailed - his Knight + Bishop proving too strong for Peter's Rook in a complex endgame.

The final between Dave and Justin took place at the club on Thursday 28th May. With Dave playing white, the game followed many previous Closed Sicilian battles until Justin started mixing it up with some aggressive king side pawn moves. In the complications that followed, Justin had a noticeable advantage but then lost the thread somewhat. Dave won a pawn (could have been more) and we ended up with a double rook ending with Dave having an extra pawn, but both players down to less than 2 minutes (+10 secs a move). Dave misplayed the ending - Justin won the pawn back and a draw was agreed. A slightly flawed, but thoroughly entertaining game!
As we have no time for a replay, the title of Club Champion 2015 will be shared by both finalists.