SUMMER TEAM QUICKPLAY - 2018
Shropshire Team Quick Play Competition. I am delighted to report that Telepost won the Shropshire Team Quick Play competition held at the Wrekin Housing Trust on Saturday 2nd June. Telepost fielded a strong team, consisting of regulars, Nigel Ferrington, Matthew Clark and John Bashall, new signing Trevor Brotherton and former club captain, Richard Bryant. Newport's squad was even stronger, featuring International Master Lawrence Cooper on board 1 and three of Shropshire top 7 rapid play players on board 2-4 (we have two of the top 7 on boards 1 and 2). They also had rising star Edison Xu on Board 5 (number 4 Under 11 in the UK.). The three other teams competing were Maddocks, Newport B and “Motley Crew” (a decent team made up of players from a number of different clubs). Telepost battled their way through the group phase. Despite a couple of disappointing defeats to Maddocks (the old Priorslee Lions team), we were comfortable enough in 3rd in the League phase, meaning that we avoided the more difficult semi-final vs. Newport. There were a couple of highpoints in the League phase, such as Nigel's draw with IM Lawrence Cooper and Matthew Clark's victory over Ian Jamieson (who outgrades me by 38 points!), but overall the team knew we needed to improve in the decisive rounds. We found our form in the semi-final vs. Maddocks. Although, Will Bates secured his 3rd win of the day vs. Matthew (Will was the only player to beat me all day, but he gave me three Chess lessons!), Telepost were successful on all the other boards with Nigel, Trevor, Richard and John all securing impressive victories to secure a place in the final 4-1. This meant that the Final was Shropshire Chess' answer to “El Classico”, Newport vs. Telepost. The skipper realised that he needed to make a contribution and managed to repeat his first round upset vs. Ian Jamieson to secure the first point needed for victory on board 4. However Edison quickly levelled the score on board 5. He won every single game in the competition and must be all set for a bright future in Chess. Nigel battled valiantly with the Black pieces on board 1 against Newport's IM, but went down in the end. Trevor secured a valuable draw vs. Nick Rutter, which left Telepost needing a win on board 3. Fortunately Richard Bryant rolled back the years to defeat Nathaniel Paul. This meant that we were tied on 2.5-2.5, and Telepost were awarded the final on board count after the result on board 5 was eliminated. Many Thanks to Toby Neal and Francis Best for organising the competition and well done to all the players!
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The 2018 Shropshire summer team quickplay competition is being held on Saturday, June 2, Time limits and exact format will be announced when the number of entries is known (but for guidance past events have been leagues followed by semi finals and final, usually with a time control of around 20 minutes).
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SHROPSHIRE QUICKPLAY RULES 1 Teams will be of FIVE players. 2 Unless the competition is run with matches on a ‘home' and ‘away' basis, in each round team captains will toss for choice of having the white pieces on board one. 3 Players can only play for ONE team in the competition. 4 Subject to the above rule, teams can play substitutes from their club ranks during the competition. The intention of this is that if, say, a club has six or seven players interested in playing, those ‘extras' will have, at their captain's discretion, a chance to play in later rounds. 5 In the case of time control disputes, the arbiters in the first instance will be the two team captains. If they are actually involved in the dispute, the arbiter will be the competition organiser, consulting and taking advice as necessary from experienced players. (My default interpretation of the rules will be that a player whose flag falls automatically loses unless: 1. The opponent does not have mating material – and a pawn is mating material as it could promote; 2. The opponent is not trying to win i.e. is just messing about running the clock down). 6 Draws are permitted in the league/group matches (i.e. no need for board count tiebreaker). If necessary to determine which team progresses to the knockout stages, ‘goal difference' will be used to separate teams on equal points. If points and goal difference are identical, the teams will play a five minute blitz decider. 7 In the semi final and final, if the match result is a draw, the result on the bottom board will be discounted, repeatedly if necessary, until a decisive result is achieved. If all the games are drawn, the team which played black on board one will be declared winner . 8 Team names should reflect the strength of the team. If, for instance, a club enters a C team, but in practice intends to play A team players in that C team (because its A team has not entered), then the C team should be redesignated as the A team. 9 There may be some players who would like to take part, but whose clubs have not entered a team. To ensure that they are not denied the opportunity to join in, they may arrange to play for a different club as a guest player. The rule of thumb will be that they are not fielded in such a way as to bring the competition into disrepute. For example, a strong A team player should not be fielded in a D team as a guest. 10 If a team turns up unexpectedly short-handed, sympathetic consideration will be given to ad hoc arrangements on the day in which they rope in any grade-appropriate “spares” from another club, or to create a mixed or scratch team from various spare players to ensure an even number of teams are taking part – and so avoiding byes. The intention of this is to avoid the disappointment to opponents of defaulted boards and to ensure everyone who wants to play, can play, the rule of thumb again being that such arrangements do not bring the competition into disrepute. Toby Neal |
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Newport retain the quickplay trophy - Shropshire Star 13/06/2017 |
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