2nd Project 30 Celebratory Tournament

The inaugural Project 30 Celebratory Tournament, played almost exactly one year ago, was a success despite a number of players being unable to make it trough the snow. How strange that seems now, in days warm as these.

This time everybody who accepted the invitation to play made it through fine and the tournament fulfilled its original intentions of featuring players from every club I have ever played for, plus some former junior students and several excellent friends from other clubs. It was good to see a couple of newcomers entering the Project 30 Rat pack.

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I experimented with the format, utilising the old Scheveningen System for two teams of six players. I spent some time balancing the teams, grade-wise, and managed to do so within an insignificant number of points.

Team A consisted of me, Matt Jackman, Kevin Winter, Sean Cassidy, Graham Edwards and Nick Tadd. We faced Team B, made of David Baillie, Mike Creaney, Peter Harker, Royce Parker, Paul Weightman and Brian Whitaker.

Team A

Team B

The system - which pits each member of the team against each member of the opposing team, over the course of six rounds - worked extremely well and the scores were ultra-close until the very last game.

Rounds 1-3 were all drawn, 3-3! Team B won the fourth round by 3.5-2.5 but Team A won by the same score in round five. It all came down to the last round and, with everything level at 2.5-2.5 and just one game left going on, we witnessed a dramatic end to the day when Royce Parker finally managed to break the resistance of Kevin Winter.

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Thus, Team B won by a final score of 18.5-17.5. Remarkable!

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I managed to win all of my games to take hime the trophy of the best individual score, but not without various difficult adventures along the way. Royce was especially troublesome and I was only able to break out of his bind in mutual time-trouble, when we both had to speed up dramatically and accuracy went out of the window. Matt Jackman looked more than capable of matching my score but his last game, against David Baillie, was always going to be a tough test and the latter showed his class to win a tactical battle.

What were we celebrating...? Being alive! Being with great friends and being able to enjoy such excellent company and play so many exciting games!

We went to Borge immediately afterwards, to relax and eat as much as possible.

Kevin shows off his large one

Celebrating success with a cranberry juice

No Teesside meal is complete without a 'parmo'

Chess players always find the skewers

Seasoned players

Sean C. must have ordered extra lemons

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Kevin has clearly had his just deserts

Nick may have bitten off more than he can chew...

We all started singing 'Happy Birthday'

Still time for one more square meal

We waited three hours for Nick to finish this Borge beast

Thank you, everyone, for a truly wonderful and enjoyable day.