National Championships 2016 - Oh Boy!

You can tell it is just going to be one of those days.  Your lift turns up unexpectedly 30 minutes early.  Chief Organiser sleeps in, and there is what sounds like a radio roadshow next door to the venue.

To cap it all off, not one but two boards decide that they don't want to work properly.  Caissa must be really displeased with me.

The good news is I have a vantage point over board 2 so I can keep it up to date.  The bad news is I am going to kill players who keep standing in my view :D

So here we are in surprisingly sunny Grangemouth.  It is a beautiful day and we have 3 ties.  In the Richardson, Bon Accord face Edinburgh.  The Spens sees Kilmarnock against Wandering Dragons and in the Cambell Rosebowl, Castlehill face Edinburgh Civil Service.

Kilmarnock fancied their chances and sportingly gave Wandering Dragons a 1 point lead by only turning up with 4 players.  Lets see how that one pans out.

The National Team Championships see the best teams fielding 8 person teams in a knock out format, akin to the Scottish Cup competing for a trophy that was created when Methuselah was a young lad

Next we have the Spens, that is a 5 board team (it used to be 6 but was changed as it means you can get a single team in a car).  This is not the original trophy, having gone missing during World War II, It is still an old trophy and this year is probably the first time I have ever seen it clean!  It is named after Sheriff Walter Cook Spens who was one of the founders of Chess Scotland back in 1884

Finally, we have the Campbell Rosebowl for the teams who lost in the first round of the Spens.

I have "played" in the Spens final when we won back in 2010.  I was the team captain and my opponent didn't turn up :D

oard No	East Kilbride				Troon
	Colour	Name	Grade	Score	Name	Grade	Score
1	W	A Jelfs	1872	½	J Calder	1846	½
2		P Thomas	1809	½	R Templeton	1750	½
3		T Dunlop	1649	1	L Weir	1588	0
4		T Brisbane	1485	0	F Park	1455	1
5		D Thomas	1303	½	M Chapman	1406	½
6		A Howie	1361	1	Default	0	0
			Total	3½		Total	2½

 Ah the memories :D

So back to today.  No real issues other than a couple of boards deciding to misbehave.  C'est la vie!

Edinburgh Chess Club won the Richardson with a rather convincing 7-1 win over Bon Accord

Wandering Dragons won the Spens, 3-2 with that defaulted game proving to be the clincher

Edinburgh Civil Service won the Rosebowl, they drew the game 2.5-2.5, first tie break is board count that finished 7-7, second tiebreak is bottom board elimination which gave them the win, was nearly a square go in the carpark to decide that one!!

 
Well at least someone was happy at the results!