MK Rapidplay

The Milton Keynes rapidplay event duly took place yesterday.

Bedford contributed 6 players, across the 4 sections, although overall there was a disappointing lack of local players, albeit it wasn’t very well advertised locally.

A fascinating conundrum for the controller, in the Open, to run a 6 round Swiss with 7 players !

Unfortunately, this meant a bye for someone each round although eventually I didn’t get one but Ramsey got two 🙁-

I certainly rode my luck, somehow salvaging halves from Ramsey and Jon Sharp and managing to win a completely drawn position against Jack Hale, to end up sharing

the spoils with Gary Kenworthy.  Jack Hale put in an excellent performance to win the Open rating prize with 4 out of 6.

In the other sections, Mahmoud, Daniella and Abigail all managed a few points despite being some of the lower rated players in their sections.

Full Results here =>

Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com – Milton Keynes FIDE Rapid 5th October 2024 – Open

Apparently, they plan to run 3 or 4 of these next year so, hopefully, we’ll find out a bit earlier and rustle up a bit more local interest.

On the actual chess front, the games were 20mins + 5 seconds, so aren’t recorded meaning I don’t have a lot to say.

The below position arose in Jon Sharp V Steve Ledger (assuming I’ve remembered it correctly !) and Jon played, as I thought he would …. And which I’m sure Ed approves wholeheartedly (absolutely!) ….. f5. Some fascinating lines  could follow here :

f5   Bxd2

fxg6 …… If Bxc3 then gxf7+  Kf8 whereupon Qg3 seems to win for W. 

I was actually planning/looking at  f5 Bxd2  fxg6 f5 ?!  then ef  Bxc3 when B is 2 bishops for 2 pawns up but B’s pieces are somewhat offside !?

Fritz seems to think f5  Bxd2  fxg6  Qe3 !  is winning and it seems to have a point as B can now meet exf7+ with Kg7 which seems to force queens off.

In the event, I bottled it with  f5  Bxd2  fxg6  Be8   and after Qxd2 fxg6   I managed to grovel a draw many moves later.

Steve Ledger, 6th October 2024