Eight players took part in the Xmas Blitz, games were played with 5 minutes on the clock plus 3 seconds per move.
After the all-play-all Nathan and Norbert were joint leaders with 6.5/7; Matt recovered from a slow start (losing to Nathan and Norbert in the first two rounds) to finish in 3rd with a score of 5/7. The 6th round game between Nathan and Norbert had seen Nathan gain a material advantage which was sacrificed back to expose the king, however Norbert successfully held the position and a draw was agreed with both players running out of time.
Dave Wood finished in 6th place after two good results against higher-graded opponents.
| Matt | Nathan | Norbert | Clive | Pete | John | Ed | Dave | POINTS | POSITION | |
| Matt Stemp | - | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3rd |
| Nathan Barnes | 1 | - | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6.5 | 1st= |
| Norbert Voelker | 1 | 0.5 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6.5 | 1st= |
| Clive Bellinger | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4th |
| Pete Smith | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5th |
| John Duff-Cole | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0.5 | 0 | 0.5 | 8th |
| Ed Goodman | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | - | 0.5 | 1 | 7th |
| Dave Wood | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.5 | - | 1.5 | 6th |
An Armageddon game was used to decide the overall winner (White had 5 minutes, Black 4 minutes - but a draw would mean that Black wins). Norbert won the toss and chose to have the Black pieces. Nathan played a wing gambit against the Sicilian and won a piece for two pawns fairly early on. He held the advantage into the endgame but sped up to avoid losing on time. Norbert was able to successfully improve his position and by the time Nathan lost on time the position on the board was also lost. Therefore, Norbert won the blitz tournament.
No comments:
Post a Comment