The season started with a bang last night as Cumnor 1 won against Witney 2 in the first round of the Mike Duck Online Tournament.
Home Cumnor 1 Witney 2 Away
1 (B) MacQueen, Stuart ½ – ½ Moss, Patrick
2 (W) Alizada, Eldar 1 – 0 Gilders, Ian
3 (B) Burrows, Nick 1 – 0 Kilbride-Newman, Robert (Bob)
4 (W) Terrington, Simon 1 – 0 Turner, Roger
5 (B) Glenn, Liam 1 – 0 Manning, Charlie
6 (W) Stevens, Gareth 1 – 0 Tomkys, Tony
5½ – ½
The five wins and the single draw puts Cunmor 1 at the top (joint along with City 1) of the early season table. Cumnor 2 had a bye in the first round and therefore sit in the top half. However, Cumnor 2 have been “rewarded” with a match against City 1 in the second round draw with the match scheduled for Monday evening. Cumnor 1 will play against Oxford University 2 who overcame Witney 1 in their first match, on Thursday.
If you would like to take a look at the tournament, see the results and fixtures along with the table it can be found here.
It looks like both teams will have a tougher week next than last!
With the Coronavirus epidemic still being a problem and government rules changing every 10 minutes it has been decided that the Oxfordshire Chess League will move entirely to an online tournament for the coming season. Notes from the AGM can been seen below with the new tournament starting at the end of October.
More information will be published in due course.
*Notes from AGM*
For the 20/21 season, the OCA league will not compete as we normally do.
Instead, there shall be two separate Swiss tournaments played online. The platform will be lichess.org. The first tournament starts on the week commencing Monday 26th October. This tournament will consist of six rounds with a game played every week for six weeks. Game time will be 45 minutes plus 15 seconds per move.
All the teams will be pooled together, with the fixtures pulled out of a hat.
Cumnor will enter both of our teams into both tournaments. Liam will run the first team while Steve will run the second.
During the meeting we found that a number of clubs had difficulty being able to put out all of their teams to play online. Most notably Banbury, whom are only able to field one team to play online this season. Bicester said they cannot field a single team. Didcot said it could field one team and Wantage stressed they were struggling.
The second Swiss tournament will take place after Christmas, and will consist of eight rounds, with a game played each week over eight weeks. Depending on how the first tournament works, may influence how the second tournament works. For example two tiers, one for stronger teams and the other for weaker teams.
Nothing concrete was concluded, but the general consensus is to make it as simple as possible.
Your new Over the Board chess grades will not be affected by these tournaments. These online games qualify for an ECF online grade.
It was suggested that only players with ECF membership may take part. This is one of the things that Ian is going to clarify.
A few clubs stressed a preference for a team to consist of four players only for the 20/21 on-line tournaments. This was voted out by a significant majority of the clubs wishing to maintain six boards. This of course means more of us can get involved in this season’s online competitive chess.
The Swiss tournaments will be played weekly. Matches will be played on the evening of the clubs normal club night. Therefore, if Cumnor teams are drawn first, then we shall play the fixture on Thursday as usual.
I believe only Cumnor and some of Cowley’s teams play on Thursdays. No club plays on Fridays.
We need to come together to put in place how the League will work this coming season.
The season traditionally starts in October so if you have ideas, queries or concerns please let Ian or Roger know.
“The 20-21 season is rapidly approaching. Due to the current pandemic it will be very different from any in recent history. Concrete proposals to address this will be made at the AGM in September, and will be available in full later this month. However we thought it best to provide as early as possible an outline of the ways that we might play chess next season in order to obtain feedback, and to this end the document linked to below discusses how the league might be run next season. Comments on the proposals contained therein would be much appreciated. If you have any please either contact your club representative, or send an email to the League Secretary, Roger Thetford”
As you will probably be aware the Coronavirus has taken its toll on the sporting calendar. The chess leagues have also been affected with all league matches (in Oxfordshire) being postponed for the next 3 weeks. This will affect Cumnor 1’s matches against Didcot 1, Colwey 1 and City 1. While Cumnor 2 has only one match postponed against Witney 4.
As soon as we learn anything new I will post it on the website, please see below for the latest announcement.
The OCA Chairman and Secretary have been informed that within the next couple of days the ECF will be advising local leagues to suspend matches for a period of three weeks, owing to the potential to transmit coronavirus. We therefore strongly recommend that the ODCL fixtures scheduled to take place in the period Monday 16 March to Sunday 5 April are not played.
We will consult with the Committee and will reassess the situation in due course. It is too early to decide on rescheduling matches, whether the suspension should be lifted after 5 April, and on what to do if the matches in the 2019-20 season cannot be completed.
See the news item on the OCA website for details.
http://www.oxfordfusion.com/oca/index.cfm
It was a successful weekend for the Cumnor players at Kidlington. Gareth won the U145 with 4.5 (out of 5)! While in the Open, Eldar ended with 2.5 (all out of 5) and Nick and Nigel both finished with 2 points. Both Nick and Nigel were in the running for the Oxfordshire Individual Chess Champion for 2020 going into the final round but it was eventually won by Dimitrios Zakarian. Ian played in the U180’s and finished with 2.5 and Robin ended with 2.5 in the U120’s.
Congratulations to Gareth on his well deserved victory!
Check out Gerard O’Reilly’s Tournament report below and more information such as the cross tables can be found here.
“Tournament Report, 2020
The 43rd annual Kidlington Tournament was held on the weekend of 1 & 2 February at our regular venue, Exeter Hall. Despite a somewhat lower number of entries (182 at the time entries closed) than last year, we were unaffected by bad weather and therefore started with a very healthy total of 180 players in the draw for the first round: 20 in the Open section, 46 in the U180, 59 in the U145, and 55 in the U120 section.
We were back with our regular team of controllers throughout the weekend this year, Tim Dickinson (Open & U180), Priscilla Morris (U145), and Lucy Smith (U120). After the software problems of last year, we switched this year to Swiss-Manager as our tournament software, and that all went very smoothly, with the rest of the team benefiting from Tim’s expertise with the program. I am, as always, most grateful to all three of them for their hard work, calmness, and efficiency.
In the Open section, FM Marcus Harvey of Witney Chess Club was a point clear on 100% after four rounds, and therefore repeated his outright victory of last year despite being held to a draw in the final round by Oxford University’s Yuting Fu. FM Daniel Abbas (Oxford University) finished clear second on 4 points, followed by IM Andrew Greet (Bearsden) and Yuting Fu (Oxford University) on 3.5 points.
The Open section also incorporated the second leg of the 2019-20 Oxfordshire Individual Championship, the first leg being the Open section at last November’s Witney Congress. The winner would be the player with the highest score from the two legs taken together. It turned out to be a very close finale, though admittedly this was largely because Filip Mihov (Oxford University), the winner at Witney with 4.5/5, was not at Kidlington and Marcus Harvey had not played at Witney.
By the start of Round 5, three players (Nick Burrows and Nigel Moyse of Cumnor Chess Club, plus young Dimitrios Zakarian) had all caught up with the absent Filip Mihov’s Witney total of 4.5 points, with Marcus breathing down their necks on 4. But as things turned out in the final round, Nick and Nigel both lost and, with Marcus being held to a draw, Dimitrios’s draw was good enough for him to take the title of Oxfordsire Individual Chess Champion for 2020. I don’t know for sure (and will welcome correction if I’m mistaken), but I suspect he may well be the youngest ever winner of the title. He also follows in the footsteps of his father, FM David Zakarian, who won the title in 2017.
Garth picking up his cheque for coming joint first in the U145’s.The U180 section produced a clear winner in David Ireland of Coventry, who scored 4.5 points. Roger de Coverley (Bourne End) fell just short of sharing first place for the third year running, despite again scoring 4 points, but he still shared second place with Anita Somton (West Nottingham) and Witney junior Adam Sieczkowski.
A notable feature of the event was the return to Kidlington of Nick Jones (formerly of Witney Chess Club, and my predecessor as Kidlington organizer), who shared the Veteran Prize with Reading’s Michael Redmond.
The U145 section was won by another Oxfordshire player, with Gareth Stevens (Cumnor) finishing first equal on 4.5 points with Peter Dove from Newbury. Other local players in the prizes were Rod Langham (Oxford City), winner of the Round 1 Loser Prize, and Joshua Soanes of Witney, who took the junior prize.
Only the U120 section winner saw a winner with a 100% score, Oxford resident Zulfi Heydon. Other local players in the prizes were Cowley’s Advaith Panicker, taking the Junior Prize, and Ian Brooke (Oxford City) and Kelly Riley (Cowley), who shared the Veteran Prize.
In the U120 section, remarkable pairings have in the past usually involved a great age disparity between a very young junior and a veteran of many years standing. This year, in Round 1, the pairing of veterans Ian Brooke and Banbury’s Michael Campling produced a game in which the combined age of the players was 183 years!
In the team competition, the winners were Bourne End (Roger de Coverley, David Turner, Darrell Watson, & Juan Perez) with 13 points out of 20.
Andrew Butterworth of Chess Direct again provided the excellent bookstall as well as the boards and sets for the tournament and the clocks we used in the U120 section. And Helen Hackett (Hackett’s Food & Drink of Witney) sustained us through the weekend yet again with the fine selection of refreshments. I thank them both warmly for their important role in making the tournament a success.
After thanking the controlling team of Tim, Priscilla, and Lucy, as well as Andrew and Helen, I want to record my gratitude to Raj Panicker (now my Co-organizer) for all his help with the organization of the event, in particular with the online entries and the tournament website, and for entering the games from the Open section to put on the website, in addition to his taking photos at the Prizegiving.
I also want to thank the staff at Exeter Hall for all their help and courtesy. (Many of you who have been coming for years will will have missed Bert, the caretaker, this time. He has retired since last year’s event, after 27 or 28 Kidlington tournaments, I’m told. But the caretakers who set things up and were on duty at the weekend, mainly Mark and Gerry, were very helpful.)
Last but not least, my thanks to all who came to play at this year’s Kidlington tournament, and particularly those who made donations to our tournament funds—vital to our long-term survival and to our continued ability to provide support for other local chess events during the year.
We shall return to Exeter Hall for our 44th annual Kidlington Chess Tournament on Saturday and Sunday 6 & 7 February 2021. As every year, we look forward not only to welcoming very many returning entrants from this year and previous years but also to welcoming a good number of players coming to Kidlington for the first time. We hope to see you there!
The season is progressing well for both teams. Cumnor 1 are currently 4th out of 8 in Division 1 with 2 wins and a loss in the first 3 matches. While Cumnor 2 are 2nd in division 4 with 2 wins, a draw and a loss.
Both teams have a lot of matches before Christmas, with both teams playing on the same evening two weeks running. This coming Thursday (14th November) Cumnor 1 are playing away to last years double winners Oxford University 1 while Cumnor 2 are playing at home to Cowley 6. The following week (21st November) Cumnor 1 are at home to Banbury 1 and Cumnor 2 are away in the Frank Woods Shield to an Oxford University team.
The club will remain open on these evenings (right up until the 19th December which will be our last Club night before Christmas) but please be aware that 12 players will be playing matches so the opportunity to play friendly and Players Cup and Bill Laar Trophy matches might be a bit thin on the ground.
An updated Players Cup and Bill Laar Trophy can be found here.
Please see which players you have left to play before the end of the year especially if you are in the running for a prize and good luck to the players who are playing for each team.
The new season is upon and is due to kick off this week.
Cunmor 1 will playing in division 1 for the first time and will play their first match away to City 1 on 7th October before home matches against Didcot 1 and Cowley 2.
Cumnor 2 kick off with home matches against Witney 4 and Didcot 3.
We are always looking for new players so drop us an email / call or pop along to the club on Thursday more information can be found here.
The first round of the Frank Wood Shield has been confirmed away to The Didcot Dynamos on Wednesday 20th February, as defending Champions we are looking forward to the match and won’t be taking it lightly.
The Cumnor players who won the 2018 Frank Wood Shield.This weekend is the Kidlington Chess Congress, as long it isn’t cancelled due to the weather. The entries are now closed and 6 Cumnor players are taking part.
Eldar, Nick, Nigel are playing in the Open, Ian in the U180’s, Gareth in the U145’s and Robin in the U120’s.
On Thursday 24th January both teams are playing away, Cumnor 1 are playing Oxford University 2 and Cumnor 2 are playing Magdalen College School, this will mean the club will be closed for the evening.
We will open again on Thursday 31st January, when Cumnor 1 take on second place Banbury 2. We are currently 2 points clear of Banbury 2 and have a better head-to-head, so the coming week will define the season.
Looking out of my window this morning I can confirm Autumn has clearly started but in good news the chess season kicks off next month!
So pop down to the club for some pre-season friendlies this evening.
The Oxfordshire Chess Association’s AGM is being held at Cowley Chess Club at 7.30pm tonight (Thursday 13 September) so a few members will be attending this but the club remains open.
