As there are a number of highly graded players in the tournament this year, this has meant that although we are only in Round 2, already the top seeds are playing each other. This of course resulted in some very close games and more draws in Round 2 than we would normally expect.
A good example is Bob Holmes playing Ed Goodwin - their game was very closely fought and with less than 3 minutes on his clock Ed managed to force a perpetual check and claim a draw. Mike Johnson's game against Rajan was again very close although Mike felt if he had played on he may have been able to force a win.
Another new player that continues to impress is Tom Stamper who earned a draw against Clive Blackburn. Tom get his nerve in a very tricky end game which would have been easy to loose.
Don Sheward provided an upset in his game beating Paul Sweatman. Wesley Beeston also claimed his first point of the tournament.
We now have some early leaders with 2 points:
Dave Ireland,Mike Donnelly,Joshua Pink and another newcomer Bernard Charnley closely followed by a number of players on 1.5 points Ed Goodwin,Rajen, Mike Johnson, Bob Holmes.
Dont forget the next round is.... Tuesday 28th April normal 7.30pm start
As I mentioned last week chess is finally getting some publicity in the national newspapers .. but only because of a GM trying to cheat! here is another article from the Independent talking about the pressures of playing top flight chess.
Chess Cheating Star
Full Results from 21/4/2015
D.Ireland 1 0 P.Smith
M.Donnelly 1 0 D.Filer
J.Pink 1 0 S.B. Manickam
E.Goodwin .5 .5 R.Holmes
R.Parekh .5 .5 M.Johnson
B.Charnley 1 0 B.Graff
W.Beeston 1 0 T.Gazee
C.Blackburn .5 .5 Tom Stamper
P.Sweatman 0 1 D.Sheward
I.Evans 1 0 S.Whitmore
T.White 1 0 J.Matthews
D.Adams 0 1 N.Weaver
Points after 2 Rounds
D.Ireland 2
M.Donnelly 2
J.Pink 2
B.Charnley 2
E.Goodwin 1.5
R.Parekh 1.5
M.Johnson 1.5
R.Holmes 1.5
N.Weaver 1
W.Beeston 1
Bava 1
D.Filer 1
P.Smith 1
S.Weaver 1
T.White 1
I.Evans 1
D.Sheward 1
T.Stamper .5
C.Blackburn .5
B.Graff .5
S.Whitmore 0
D.Adams 0
T.Gazee 0
G.Cornell 0
R.Sian 0
J.Matthews 0
P.Sweatman 0
And finally.... if you want some FREE chess lessons check out this link