Tuesday 23 November 2021

12th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament

12th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament saw a return to over-the-board chess after last year's temporary switch to the online world.

This time, five players contested a double round-robin tournament, with 10 minutes on each clock.

A selection of Mike's favourite openings was drawn at random, with one such opening featuring in every round. This time, we had the French Wing Gambit, the Sicilian Najdorf, Sicilian Wing Gambit, Sicilian Scheveningen and the Danish Gambit.

None of the above openings are specialities of any of this year's participants, but we did our best to play in the spirt of Mike.

Trying to work out alien strategies over the board led to time trouble for all concerned and most of the games could easily have gone either way. 

There was only one draw in the whole event and that came in the very last game to finish, when Jo's queen was able to force a perpetual check on my king, despite my advantage of an extra rook and knight - not to mention a threat of checkmate in one move.

Final Scores

9.5/10: Sean Marsh
8/10: Dave Baillie
5/10: Richard Harris
4.5/10: Jo Hutchinson
3/10: Royce Parker

Well played, everyone - and thank you very much for supporting the 12th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament.

Here is a gallery from the exciting evening.



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Index of Tournament Reports


1st Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2010

2nd Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2011

3rd Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2012

4th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2013

5th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2014

6th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2015

7th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2016

8th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2017

9th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2018

10th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2019

11th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2020

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