Welcome to our club's website archive for 2005 - 06.
June 2006
From Malcolm...On the last two occasions that club members enjoyed a "friendly" match between the residents of Beckenham and Bromley, Bromley won fairly easily. On this occasion, Bromley won again, but it all depended on the result of the last game to finish where Nick Briggs, perhaps rather surprisingly, beat Ian Snape.
An exciting evening enjoyed by all.
Another loosely satisfactory year for the club with one trophy in the cabinet and the County cup team almost making the semi-finals in a zonal stage. The London League teams remain competitive, perhaps one step from a promotion next year?
We played 452 match games, making exactly 50% of the points (226). OK, so if we discount 27 defaults - mostly in our favour - it's a little less good (47.6%). But so what - I'm sure we'd have won those games anyway if they'd turned up. Right.
... has reached its final phase. This year we have a semi-final between the 4 players who scored most over the season and then there will be a final, all to be played in June.
Ron Huggins [w] will play John Lewin
Alan Fraser [w] will play Neil Cannon
May 2006
Malcolm Mourant writes... we played the second match against Charlton for less experienced and junior members of the club, myself excluded. Two rounds of half hour games - results are here
Well done to Miles Thomas and Michael Goodbody, two of our three juniors in the team, for their wins in the second round.
Our other junior, Robert Maguire, was unlucky to lose in the second round to Charlton's top board. Although we lost the match overall, it provided valuable experience to some of our newer club members.
Congratulations on winning the Lewis Cup, guys! Six decisive games against Lewisham, four of which were in our favour, was enough. Thanks to Ian Snape for captaining the team through a difficult season.
The other winning team members were: Nick Briggs, John Lewin, Neil Cannon, Alan Sands and John Griffiths.
Wins from Briggs and Heard are enough to beat Thanet in the last zonal match of the County Cup, but it's not enough to get through to final.
March 2006
Our very disappointing loss to Lewisham on Wednesday was followed by an amazing 3½-2½ win against Maidstone on Thursday.
First, thanks to John Alderson for stepping in at the last minute and securing a critical draw. However, the honours must go to Nick Briggs and Neil Cannon. With these games still playing, the score was 2½-1½ to Maidstone and few would have bet on a Beckenham win.
Nick was not looking good and was about to drop a piece. However, he gave it up in the optimum way to complicate the position and then outplayed his opponent.
Neil had a Q+R+3P v 2R+B+N+P position where his opponent’s king was slightly exposed. When I first looked at it, Neil was well down on time and I assumed it would come down to whether Neil could push his f pawn quickly enough to cause White problems (i.e. play Qe3 and f5-f4 etc.) but Neil played Qe5, the f pawn never moved and the game took a very different course very slowly.
The outturn was that both players had only a couple of minutes left in the quickplay finish and it was probably clear to all the spectators that the only thing relevant was the clock. In the end, with both flags hanging, his opponent lost on time with Neil about to pick up a rook.
This brings our cumulative score to 3½ out of 7 with the home game against Thanet to come. Maidstone have finished on 5/8 and therefore qualify for the final. Lewisham have 4½ out of 7 with 1 game against Thanet to come. The high probability is therefore that we will just miss out on the final.
I thought I'd share this email from Ian Snape...
Well done to John for finally finding mate in 1 at the adjournment (for the record, when I glanced at the board I also failed to spot it immediately ... resulting in a 3½ - 2½ win against Charlton on Tuesday...
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It's not the first time I'd seen this happen. A few years back, on the first game of the season at Dartford, Chris Bernard wasted a good 15 minutes drinking time before sealing mate, claiming not to realise afterwards the finality of his move. Imagine, turning up at a resumption only to find that you've been mated without playing a single move!
August 2005
The fourth most active player last year was our very own Alan Fraser, with 144 games, exceeding previous years (135 and 112). Ian Snape is not for behind with 111.