Kingston’s Mexican star scores 6/6 to win the club’s Easter Bank Holiday Blitz. Stephen Moss reports
As the league season becomes a little less full on, we can start to turn our attention to internal club activities such as the blitz run on Bank Holiday Monday. Organised by Julian Way, John Foley and David Bickerstaff, this was an enjoyable 26-player event won by CM David Maycock with 6/6, closely pursued by FM Vladimir Li and Zain Patel (pictured above, front right, playing Tony Hughes) with 5/6. That’s a very classy trio to have at the top of the leaderboard in what proved a highly successful event.
In a first for the club, the tournament was posted on the Chess Results server with the results updated in real time. That allowed members to follow what was happening remotely and is also great publicity for the club. More of our internal tournaments will be publicised in this way.
The key match-up came in round 4 when David, with White, got the better of Vladimir Li in a closely contested game. Vladimir felt he had an advantage in the early part of the game, but then erred as time started to press. The time control was three minutes with a seven-second increment – relatively generous for blitz but still testing against a player like David, who is forever setting problems and adding layers of complexity.
Zain Patel’s only loss had come against Vladimir in round 3. Zain had come fresh from playing in the Southend Chess Congress, which had concluded earlier that day, so to play in the Kingston Blitz a few hours later showed a remarkable degree of commitment. His enthusiasm is infectious and he was still at the club playing friendly blitz 45 minutes after the main event had ended.
Other strong performers were Surbiton’s young star Joseph Morrison, Kingston junior William Lin and Wimbledon’s ever competitive Tony Hughes, a three-time winner of the monthly All Saints Blitz. Edmond Andal was also having a good tournament until he blundered against Vladimir in the final round in a winning position.
David, a noted chocoholic, took the first prize of a box of Lindt chocolates (this is not a desperate bid for sponsorship, by the way); juniors Zain Patel and William Lin received prizes for their high placings; and Zain’s younger sister, Parisa Patel, who also had a tremendous tournament, won the giantkilling prize for her victory on time over Kingston club president John Foley. Reports that John will be retiring from chess in the wake of the tournament are, we are told, entirely without foundation.
Top six
First: David Maycock (6/6)
Joint second: Vladimir Li and Zain Patel (5/6)
Joint fourth: Joseph Morrison, William Lin and Tony Hughes (4/6)
