Glyn Pugh was announced as winner of the 2021-22 Colin Roberts Memorial Trophy at the annual meeting of Shropshire Chess Association.
After two rounds of voting to whittle down the nine entries, judges chose Pugh’s win against Athar Ansari as meriting the trophy, which is for the best game played by a Shropshire player during the season. Judges’ comments included: “Glyn’s game stood out as he was able to find the best moves to punish his opponent’s exposed king in less than 30 moves,” and “the moment g4 is played white has committed to trying to win and there is very little chance of it ending in a draw. Bg6 check is a dream of a move later on and the pressure cracked black’s defence, which although it may not have been a perfect defence, black was totally busted.”
The three judges spanned all three Shropshire chess league divisions – previous winner William Bates, Stefan Tennant, and Phil Love. Pugh’s game was chosen as winner by two of the three judges and the trophy was presented to Glyn on the night. Also getting an honourable mention from the judges, two of whom chose it as their second favourite candidate, was Francis Best’s win against Adrian Zdanowski.
The entries are all available to play over on the Colin Roberts Memorial Trophy section of the Shropshire chess website.