4th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament
This year's memorial event, in honour of our dear friend Mike Closs, featured four of Teesside's top players in a quadruple round-robin blitz tournament. At five minutes per player per game, the action was fast and furious.
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David Wise got off to a flying start, beating defending champion Julian Allinson 2-0 at the start of the event.
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Indeed, David was on terrific form and he stormed to an excellent score of 6/6 after the first cycle of matches.
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Scores after the first cycle:
David Wise 6/6
Julian Allinson 4/6
David Baillie, John Garnett 1/6
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Julian put himself back in the title race with a victory over David Wise at the start of the second cycle of matches, with a brilliant exchange sacrifice proving decisive. However, David still held a half-point advantage as the tournament moved into the final stages.
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Meanwhile, David Baillie and John Garnett were playing fighting chess in every game, absolutely worthy of the occasion. I was impressed by David's kingside pawn structure in the following position...
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...although John, with the white pieces, went on to win that game.
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Despite the ferocity of the battles, the players kept on great terms!
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There were only two draws out of all the games played. We saw at least one entertaining checkmate pattern.
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David Baillie played one of the best games of the day to defeat David Wise in the penultimate round and John Garnett held David to a draw in one of the games from the final round. That all left Julian with a great chance of winning the tournament, but he had to beat David Baillie 2-0 to do it. After two more fighting games, Julian emerged as champion again.
Final scores:
Julian Allinson 9.5/12
David Wise 9/12
David Baillie 3/12
John Garnett 2.5/12
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So Julian completed a remarkable comeback and took the title for the third time!
Reports from previous events
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